8 ms·

Damning verdict on doctor who linked vaccine and autism

116 points by prat 17y ago

ikitat 17y ago
Sadly, this will only put a small dent in the anti-vaccination cloaked as autism advocacy movement.
- prat 17y ago
  There aren't as many pseudo doctors as there are pseudo scientists. This bit of pseudoscience is not as resilient as intelligent design. I think this dent will quickly kill the movement.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    I doubt it. Evidence only sways people who have based their stance on rational reasoning.
    - isleyaardvark 17y ago
      Or as the saying goes, "It is impossible to reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place."
  - lbrandy 17y ago
    I appreciate your optimism but I fear you haven't been following this very closely. This is not the first time this guy and his work has been completely tossed under a bus. The antivax people have known for a LONG TIME that this guy was being seriously discredited and chalked it up to "big pharma funded" witch hunting. See for yourself: http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/01/naked-intimidation-the-wakefield-inquisition-is-only-the-tip-of-the-autism-censorship-iceberg.html http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/01/naked-intimidation-the-wa... This won't go away until serious and preventable diseases start frequently killing children.
    - coolnewtoy 17y ago
      I think it will be more closely tied to progress made in identifying preventable root causes of autism and the diagnosis rates start coming down. I actually doubt the illnesses of other people's children will register as loudly as the autistic symptoms of antivax advocates' own children.
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    I'd like to be as optimistic as you are about the latest follow-up on Wakefield's fraud, but see this research-citing blog post by a physician: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2962 http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2962 "None of this mattered. Andrew Wakefield still enjoys a cult of personality among the anti-vaccine crowd that no revelation seems able to dislodge, even the revelation that at the time he was both in the pay of trial lawyers and working on his study, Andrew Wakefield was also applying for a patent for a rival measles vaccine. Indeed, the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism bestowed upon him last year its 'Galileo Award' as the 'persecuted' scientist supposedly fighting for truth, justice, and anti-vaccinationism against the pharma-funded or brainwashed minions of the 'Church of the Immaculate Vaccination.' In the meantime, MMR uptake rates in the U.K. have plummeted over the last decade, far below the level needed for herd immunity, to the point where, last year the Health Protection Agency declared measles to be once again endemic in the U.K., 14 years after the local transmission of measles had been halted." See also this subthread here on HN http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1053644 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1053644 and its comments on the same blog post from Science-Based Medicine.
  - jjs 17y ago
    > There aren't as many pseudo doctors as there are pseudo scientists. Are you sure about that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine
- w00pla 17y ago
  The problem is not with vaccination - but the amount of vaccines (which is getting pretty ridiculous).
  - KirinDave 17y ago
    Has anyone challenged you on this? 1. We space vaccines out "just to be safe." 2. We test vaccines exhaustively and have decades of field data about them. 3. Children receive vaccines only against diseases which are very dangerous to children and not impossible to get. But having a large catalogue of vaccines seems like a good thing! Vaccines are the cheapest way to fight disease: by priming your immune system so you can heal yourself. Quite frankly, they're more in the style of allopathic miracle than any goofy herb or berry that some quack says balances energies. Think about it: they teach your body how to fight off infections by giving your body an opportunity to practice. This is the future, dude. Vaccines are biological hacking at the personal level.
    - mbreese 17y ago
      I don't know... I'm a scientist and I think it might be getting to be a little much too. RE 1) We space vaccines out not "just to be safe", but to actually be safe. You don't want to use a cocktail of things that has been adequately tested. Also, you space them out so they can be more effective. Let's say that your body has X immune capacity to absorb the benefit from a vaccine. You don't want to throw 20 things at it. About 3 at a time is as much as you want to do. RE 3) Honestly, the only vaccine that I've questioned is the Chicken pox vaccine. My son got it, but when I was growing up getting the Chicken pox was just part of being a kid. I understand the rationale: if you don't get it until you're older it's pretty bad, there is the economic cost of a parent needing to be home, etc... but polio it isn't. (I know, you don't want your kid to be the 1% that has a severe case... like I said, my kid still got it).
      - sabat 17y ago
        But science (not intuitition) has shown that the immune system can handle many such "onslaughts" at once with only positive results. Many, many. the only vaccine that I've questioned is the Chicken pox vaccine. My son got it, but when I was growing up getting the Chicken pox was just part of being a kid. So if you got it then everyone should be at risk of getting it? It's not better if we can prevent it altogether by teaching the immune system to fight it off? Chicken Pox is not necessarily harmless; do a Google search for "shingles".
martythemaniak 17y ago
Evidence against the conspiracy is actually evidence for for the conspiracy. In this case, They charged him because he was right and they felt threatened by him.
- rauljara 17y ago
  Ah. So if I provide evidence that you are wrong, really I am providing evidence that you are right. Because I wouldn't bother presenting the evidence that you are wrong unless you really were right and I felt threatened by your rightness. Never mind the evidence itself.
  - jjs 17y ago
    I think he means, from the anti-evidentiary viewpoint of the conspiracy nuts.
- KirinDave 17y ago
  If you are joking, it is a funny joke.
  - MartinCron 17y ago
    He is joking, and it is funny, but it's not original of a joke. It's common for paranoid conspiracy theorists, to take any evidence of disproof and spin that as further proof. Kind of sad that it got downmodded. Oh well.
- run4yourlives 17y ago
  Sadly, this is exactly what many will feel. I suppose in time their ignorance will be their undoing, as they'll be the ones dying off if any of these diseases re-surfaces.
pragmatic 17y ago
It would be nice to get back on track looking for the real cause(s) of autism. Our son was diagnosed and has received intense IBT/ABA therapy (along with spech, OT and PT). It has been fantastic. Total turn around. No low gluten diet, Jenny McCarthy BS, just Cognitive Behavioral Therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy . Sadly as of the latest information I have, we don't know what causes Autism and CBT is one of the only effective means for treating it.
- m104 17y ago
  Agreed. All of this focus on vaccines has put quite a lot reputations on the line, on both sides of the debate. Once the matter is settled (will it ever be settled?), I'm concerned that we'll have autism burn-out and it'll be nearly impossible to get the funding and minds needed for further research into causes and treatments.
  - smokinn 17y ago
    I would be ok with this nonsense if it were a debate but it really isn't. It's science on one side and hysteria on the other. One side says show us the evidence! The other side points to dozens of papers showing no link whatsoever. The other side doesn't say anything and then goes to another tv show and says show us the evidence! It's ridiculous but it sure does teach you a lot about herd mentality.
  - philk 17y ago
    There aren't two sides to this debate. There's established medical opinion, backed up by substantial evidence, proving that vaccines are both safe and responsible for saving hundreds of millions of lives. The idea that there are two sides to the debate gives anti-vaccine activists more credibility than they are entitled to. Vaccines work and are safe. They don't cause autism and anyone who says that they do is at best deluded.
    - dpnewman 17y ago
      do you feel any concern about injecting these ingredients into your or your child's blood stream? Formaldehyde, Beta-Propiolactone, Neomycin Sulfate, Polymyxin B, Potassium Chloride, Sodium Taurodeoxycholate, Thimerosal I am not making a case for linking vaccines to autism, nor for the idea that vaccines are not often crucial factors in preventing disease spread or pandemic. However, I would say blanket statements that vaccines are simply "safe" ...end of story, seems too simplistic and potentially dangerous.
patrickgzill 17y ago
Can someone describe the editorial policy of The Lancet, given that the doctor in question rose to prominence on the strength of being published there?
- tokenadult 17y ago
  From the submitted article that opened this thread: "The Lancet itself said in 2004 that in hindsight it shouldn't have published the paper, following publication of a retraction by 10 co-authors on the paper." The Lancet editor commented on the 2004 retraction that the Lancet needed to change its editorial policies, which I think has happened since. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC381161/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC381161/
- mikeryan 17y ago
  The Lancet is a widely respected and peer reviewed medical journal. It's hard to impeach or blame them, they're going to get a few things wrong. This particular article was one of their most controversial and severely criticized. It may be one of The Lancet's poorest moments.
ivankirigin 17y ago
Vaccines don't cause autism. That should be the first sentence of every story about this topic. Many people will die because of this bullshit.
- electromagnetic 17y ago
  The true risk isn't to the children who haven't had the vaccines, it's to the immunocompromised that are quite literally being murdered because of some parents ignorance. It isn't the 16-65 age bracket that's being affected here, the immunodeficient can typically be any child under 16, any senior over 65, pregnant women, people with existing infections (even as simple as a cold) and those with HIV/AIDS. In my honest opinion, and this one is quite a rare one for me, this is a subject where the UK health services should take a page out of the US' book. MMR vaccines should be mandatory for attending school. This would place these parents in a serious catch 22, as home-education in the UK is exceptionally harder to do than in the US (as in it's virtually unheard of). It will place these parents in a position where they have a choice inoculation, segregation (no admission to public schools until immunisation) or prison (in the UK parents are fully responsible for placing their child into an educational institute and ensuring they attend, if they don't they can face jail time).
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    >home-education in the UK is exceptionally harder to do than in the US (as in it's virtually unheard of) It may well be harder in the UK, I'd be interested in the reasoning there, but I'd dispute that it's [virtually or actually] unheard of. I think you're being too tough here. Latest reports that I've looked at are that the Thiomersal used in vaccines that was associated with autism has been removed from US vaccines and that studies have since shown that there has been no corresponding decline in autism cases. In order to learn this though I had to do some research and look at some quite complex discussions. The US studies have not been popularised by the likes of the BBC that widely reported on the MMR controversy. Indeed I was studying the swine flu vaccine, http://alicious.com/2010/swine-flu-vaccine-safe/ http://alicious.com/2010/swine-flu-vaccine-safe/ , as we were offered it for our son. The NHS did have a very thorough FAQ on it. I'm still reticent about the swine-flu vaccine - they've probably had it (we all had a couple of flu like episodes in autumn-early winter), it's normally not severe, infections are declining, next season it will have mutated and this vaccine will likely provide no benefit AND most importantly this vaccine has not undergone the extensive testing that drugs normally do. We probably will have the vaccination as I have to trust our health care workers here. If we don't vaccinate and someone catches swine-flu from my son, him having nothing more than a sniffle, will I be a murderer in your eyes?
timclark 17y ago
The true scandal was the championing of the original story by the UK and worldwide media. If it had been reported responsibly and not sensationalised hardly anyone would have heard about the supposed link between vaccines and autism - read Ben Goldacre for a good discussion - http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax.
- room606 17y ago
  I was just about to post that link but you beat me to it. It's more than a little unfair that Wakefield is being blamed for the MMR scare when the mainstream media in the UK did everything they could to fan the flames yet remain for the most part innocent
  - anamax 17y ago
    > when the mainstream media in the UK did everything they could to fan the flames yet remain for the most part innocent What definition of "innocent" are we using? They may not be liable, but they're not innocent.
    - carbocation 17y ago
      From my read of your post and that of the parent, the two of you are in agreement on that point.
      - room606 17y ago
        Yes, carbocation is correct, we are in agreement. The mainstream media still refuses to acknowledge their complicity in all of this. When all of this was going on in the UK, MMR scare stories were front page news but not once did I see a headline on the cover of newspaper proclaiming "MMR Hoax, Sorry My Bad" says . As Goldacre says, it's crazy to think that one man created this entire mess.
  - bootload 17y ago
    "... I was just about to post that link but you beat me to it ..." Goldacre also came to my mind. I listened to an interview with Ben Goldacre and Robin Williams, his uncle discussing examples from his newly published book, "Bad Science" and MMR was the lead example ~ http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2008/2403358.htm http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2008/2403358.ht... Goldacre made the observation that while vaccination scares occurred in various countries a different layman explanation as to why it was scary occurred for each country. In the UK it was the link between MMR and Autism. In other countries it is something different. It's sad that mums are irrational on the subject of vaccination. It saves lives. From memory the story wasn't helped by the UK PM appearing to dither vaccinating his own child, "Blair signals support for MMR" ~ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1803609.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1803609.stm and "My son has had MMR jab, says Brown (in dig at Blair)" ~ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1509845/My-son-has-had-MMR-jab-says-Brown-in-dig-at-Blair.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1509845/My-son-has-ha... In the period January to September 2002, 32% of the stories written about MMR mentioned Leo Blair, as opposed to only 25% which mentioned Wakefield. [0] So the lack of firm leadership was also a factor. [0] The above quote is cited in wikipedia ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy#cite_note-Goldacre-2008-19 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy#cite_no... and is from an article by Goldacre in the Guardian, "The MMR hoax" ~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/30/mmr.health.media http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/30/mmr.health.med... which has conveniently been pulled for copyright reasons.
apinstein 17y ago
Just a few weeks ago it was announced that autism can be diagnosed very early via brain scans: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100108101421.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100108101421.ht... Now it's only a matter of time before this technique should definitively prove that autism is there before vaccines so that the autism/vaccine link can be finally and thoroughly be tested (and likely debunked).
- ovi256 17y ago
  I would very much like it to be so, but the vaccine objectors are far from rational, it seems to me. They literally build cults of personality for their various champions, and believe with religious fervour.
  - frossie 17y ago
    believe with religious fervour Did you see the reports that the panel got heckled by some women when they announced their conclusions on Wakefield? They were told of the proof that this man compromised the herd immunity of a nation and unethically experimented on children for no good reason and yet they still cheer him on. We're not in rational-land any more, Toto.
dimas 17y ago
I know that I will probably get down voted for voicing opinion against majority but I will go with it anyway. There are evidence that vaccination is not safe, contains mercury and has negative long term side effects. Also there are long lasting debates on whether the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the harm. I have looked at both sides of the argument and based on what I have read and concluded that I would not vaccinate myself or my kids(see my reasoning below). Government cares only of the short term effect and keeping society from outbreaks of deceases where they are less concerned of long term effect that will be hard to link to any past vaccinations anyways. Even the fact the insurance companies do not cover vaccination due to possibility of severe side effects poses a question why? The long trim effect of vaccine is not well studied yet. If you look at both sides of the argument, the major question is what side has more benefit for fighting. Pharmaceuticals make tons of money on vaccination and have tons of money to promote it including usage of science as well government policies. So looking at both sides where none have concrete scientifically proof on long term effect of vaccines, what side would you take thinking on benefits that each side might have in the argument as well as possessing knowledge of possible danger of vaccine including the fact that vaccine do not work 100% as well. So the ultimate question, would you put substance containing mercury in your body knowing that it will have side effect for sure what might be mild or severe in long term against some low chance possibility of getting diseases that your body will fight anyway and that having vaccinated might not even protect you against. Here is some more info for consideration: http://www.relfe.com/vaccine.html http://www.relfe.com/vaccine.html
- gecko 17y ago
  You'll get downvoted not because you're voicing an opinion against the majority, but because you are wrong. While there are "studies" that say that you've repeated, not are scientifically reputable, in the sense of being repeatable experiments with repeatable results conducted in a scientifically rigorous way to eliminate extraneous variables. What you are doing to your kids is an insult to mine, and I will continue to fight those who oppose vaccinations until you lose.
- isleyaardvark 17y ago
  A tuna fish sandwich contains mercury.
prbuckley 17y ago
I thought that the theory for linking vaccines to autism had to do with the use of methylmercury as a preservative. Methylmercury is a known neurological toxin, here is a great resource... http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/ucm096228.htm http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability... The fact that this article brings up the fact that Wakefield had a patent in the same area as his research seems fishy to me. "The panel resurrected and upheld most, if not all, of the main charges against Wakefield, such as his undeclared conflict of interest in having filed a patent relating to treatments for bowel conditions a year before his Lancet study appeared. "The panel therefore rejects the proposition put forward by your [Wakefield's] counsel that third-party perceived conflicts of interest did not fall within the relevant definition at the time," it concludes." I used to be a research scientist and it was common place for researchers (or their institutions) to file patents on research that led to publications. No one I know ever listed this sort of thing as a conflict of interest. It sounds like this counsel might be reaching to try and discredit Dr. Wakefield. Sadly their is more politics in science than most people want to believe.
- tokenadult 17y ago
  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=14 http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=14 "Regarding the question of vaccines and autism, for ethical reasons we cannot do a double-blind, randomized, control trial of vaccines with and without thimerosal. However, we can do the next best thing, and, indeed, we now have several good studies since 1999 that do just that. Some of these studies are epidemiological; some are ecological. What allows us to use them to reject the hypothesis that mercury in vaccines is an etiological agent that is either associated with or causes autism is a very simple but powerful prediction that the hypothesis makes. Quite simply, if the hypothesis is true and thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) cause autism (or are even merely a significant contributing factor), we would expect that the removal of thimerosal from vaccines would lead to a rapid decrease in autism incidence and prevalence within 2-5 years. "There have now been several studies that examined this very hypothesis in countries that removed thimerosal from their vaccines before the U.S. did. For example Hviid et al3 reported that autism prevalence in Denmark increased from 1991 to 1996 despite the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, while Madsen et al4 looked at the time period from 1971 to 2000 and concluded that autism diagnoses continued to increase after thimerosal was removed from vaccines. Neither study supported a causal link between TCVs and autism, and they were a prominent part of the dataset that was used by the Institute of Medicine to conclude in 2004 that there was no good evidence to support a link between TCVs and autism. A more recent study by Eric Fombonne5 in Montreal examined 27,749 children born from 1987 to 1998 attending 55 different schools. Cumulative thimerosal exposure by age 2 years was calculated for the 1987-1998 birth cohorts. This exposure ranged from 100-125 μg from 1987 to 1991, 200-225 μg from 1992 to 1995, and then none after 1996, which was when thimerosal was completely removed from vaccines in Canada. The result was that autism, ASD, and pervasive developmental disorder diagnoses continued to increase in all periods, demonstrating no relationship between TCVs and autism or ASDs. Even more recently, a large study6 failed to support a relationship between thimerosal and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, a result that led one of the investigators in the study, Sallie Bernard, a proponent of the thimerosal hypothesis, to disavow the study in a case of sour grapes, because it did not show what she had hoped that it would show."
rbanffy 17y ago
I am not aware of this specific episode. What the hell does a British sci-fi series have with vaccines and/or autism?

116 points by prat 17y ago

ikitat 17y ago

Sadly, this will only put a small dent in the anti-vaccination cloaked as autism advocacy movement.

prat 17y ago
There aren't as many pseudo doctors as there are pseudo scientists. This bit of pseudoscience is not as resilient as intelligent design. I think this dent will quickly kill the movement.
- scott_s 17y ago
  I doubt it. Evidence only sways people who have based their stance on rational reasoning.
  - isleyaardvark 17y ago
    Or as the saying goes, "It is impossible to reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place."
- lbrandy 17y ago
  I appreciate your optimism but I fear you haven't been following this very closely. This is not the first time this guy and his work has been completely tossed under a bus. The antivax people have known for a LONG TIME that this guy was being seriously discredited and chalked it up to "big pharma funded" witch hunting. See for yourself: http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/01/naked-intimidation-the-wakefield-inquisition-is-only-the-tip-of-the-autism-censorship-iceberg.html http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/01/naked-intimidation-the-wa... This won't go away until serious and preventable diseases start frequently killing children.
  - coolnewtoy 17y ago
    I think it will be more closely tied to progress made in identifying preventable root causes of autism and the diagnosis rates start coming down. I actually doubt the illnesses of other people's children will register as loudly as the autistic symptoms of antivax advocates' own children.
- tokenadult 17y ago
  I'd like to be as optimistic as you are about the latest follow-up on Wakefield's fraud, but see this research-citing blog post by a physician: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2962 http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2962 "None of this mattered. Andrew Wakefield still enjoys a cult of personality among the anti-vaccine crowd that no revelation seems able to dislodge, even the revelation that at the time he was both in the pay of trial lawyers and working on his study, Andrew Wakefield was also applying for a patent for a rival measles vaccine. Indeed, the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism bestowed upon him last year its 'Galileo Award' as the 'persecuted' scientist supposedly fighting for truth, justice, and anti-vaccinationism against the pharma-funded or brainwashed minions of the 'Church of the Immaculate Vaccination.' In the meantime, MMR uptake rates in the U.K. have plummeted over the last decade, far below the level needed for herd immunity, to the point where, last year the Health Protection Agency declared measles to be once again endemic in the U.K., 14 years after the local transmission of measles had been halted." See also this subthread here on HN http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1053644 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1053644 and its comments on the same blog post from Science-Based Medicine.
- jjs 17y ago
  > There aren't as many pseudo doctors as there are pseudo scientists. Are you sure about that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine
w00pla 17y ago
The problem is not with vaccination - but the amount of vaccines (which is getting pretty ridiculous).
- KirinDave 17y ago
  Has anyone challenged you on this? 1. We space vaccines out "just to be safe." 2. We test vaccines exhaustively and have decades of field data about them. 3. Children receive vaccines only against diseases which are very dangerous to children and not impossible to get. But having a large catalogue of vaccines seems like a good thing! Vaccines are the cheapest way to fight disease: by priming your immune system so you can heal yourself. Quite frankly, they're more in the style of allopathic miracle than any goofy herb or berry that some quack says balances energies. Think about it: they teach your body how to fight off infections by giving your body an opportunity to practice. This is the future, dude. Vaccines are biological hacking at the personal level.
  - mbreese 17y ago
    I don't know... I'm a scientist and I think it might be getting to be a little much too. RE 1) We space vaccines out not "just to be safe", but to actually be safe. You don't want to use a cocktail of things that has been adequately tested. Also, you space them out so they can be more effective. Let's say that your body has X immune capacity to absorb the benefit from a vaccine. You don't want to throw 20 things at it. About 3 at a time is as much as you want to do. RE 3) Honestly, the only vaccine that I've questioned is the Chicken pox vaccine. My son got it, but when I was growing up getting the Chicken pox was just part of being a kid. I understand the rationale: if you don't get it until you're older it's pretty bad, there is the economic cost of a parent needing to be home, etc... but polio it isn't. (I know, you don't want your kid to be the 1% that has a severe case... like I said, my kid still got it).
    - sabat 17y ago
      But science (not intuitition) has shown that the immune system can handle many such "onslaughts" at once with only positive results. Many, many. the only vaccine that I've questioned is the Chicken pox vaccine. My son got it, but when I was growing up getting the Chicken pox was just part of being a kid. So if you got it then everyone should be at risk of getting it? It's not better if we can prevent it altogether by teaching the immune system to fight it off? Chicken Pox is not necessarily harmless; do a Google search for "shingles".

martythemaniak 17y ago

Evidence against the conspiracy is actually evidence for for the conspiracy. In this case, They charged him because he was right and they felt threatened by him.

rauljara 17y ago
Ah. So if I provide evidence that you are wrong, really I am providing evidence that you are right. Because I wouldn't bother presenting the evidence that you are wrong unless you really were right and I felt threatened by your rightness. Never mind the evidence itself.
- jjs 17y ago
  I think he means, from the anti-evidentiary viewpoint of the conspiracy nuts.
KirinDave 17y ago
If you are joking, it is a funny joke.
- MartinCron 17y ago
  He is joking, and it is funny, but it's not original of a joke. It's common for paranoid conspiracy theorists, to take any evidence of disproof and spin that as further proof. Kind of sad that it got downmodded. Oh well.
run4yourlives 17y ago
Sadly, this is exactly what many will feel. I suppose in time their ignorance will be their undoing, as they'll be the ones dying off if any of these diseases re-surfaces.

pragmatic 17y ago

It would be nice to get back on track looking for the real cause(s) of autism. Our son was diagnosed and has received intense IBT/ABA therapy (along with spech, OT and PT). It has been fantastic. Total turn around. No low gluten diet, Jenny McCarthy BS, just Cognitive Behavioral Therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy . Sadly as of the latest information I have, we don't know what causes Autism and CBT is one of the only effective means for treating it.

m104 17y ago
Agreed. All of this focus on vaccines has put quite a lot reputations on the line, on both sides of the debate. Once the matter is settled (will it ever be settled?), I'm concerned that we'll have autism burn-out and it'll be nearly impossible to get the funding and minds needed for further research into causes and treatments.
- smokinn 17y ago
  I would be ok with this nonsense if it were a debate but it really isn't. It's science on one side and hysteria on the other. One side says show us the evidence! The other side points to dozens of papers showing no link whatsoever. The other side doesn't say anything and then goes to another tv show and says show us the evidence! It's ridiculous but it sure does teach you a lot about herd mentality.
- philk 17y ago
  There aren't two sides to this debate. There's established medical opinion, backed up by substantial evidence, proving that vaccines are both safe and responsible for saving hundreds of millions of lives. The idea that there are two sides to the debate gives anti-vaccine activists more credibility than they are entitled to. Vaccines work and are safe. They don't cause autism and anyone who says that they do is at best deluded.
  - dpnewman 17y ago
    do you feel any concern about injecting these ingredients into your or your child's blood stream? Formaldehyde, Beta-Propiolactone, Neomycin Sulfate, Polymyxin B, Potassium Chloride, Sodium Taurodeoxycholate, Thimerosal I am not making a case for linking vaccines to autism, nor for the idea that vaccines are not often crucial factors in preventing disease spread or pandemic. However, I would say blanket statements that vaccines are simply "safe" ...end of story, seems too simplistic and potentially dangerous.

patrickgzill 17y ago

Can someone describe the editorial policy of The Lancet, given that the doctor in question rose to prominence on the strength of being published there?

tokenadult 17y ago
From the submitted article that opened this thread: "The Lancet itself said in 2004 that in hindsight it shouldn't have published the paper, following publication of a retraction by 10 co-authors on the paper." The Lancet editor commented on the 2004 retraction that the Lancet needed to change its editorial policies, which I think has happened since. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC381161/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC381161/
mikeryan 17y ago
The Lancet is a widely respected and peer reviewed medical journal. It's hard to impeach or blame them, they're going to get a few things wrong. This particular article was one of their most controversial and severely criticized. It may be one of The Lancet's poorest moments.

ivankirigin 17y ago

Vaccines don't cause autism. That should be the first sentence of every story about this topic. Many people will die because of this bullshit.

electromagnetic 17y ago
The true risk isn't to the children who haven't had the vaccines, it's to the immunocompromised that are quite literally being murdered because of some parents ignorance. It isn't the 16-65 age bracket that's being affected here, the immunodeficient can typically be any child under 16, any senior over 65, pregnant women, people with existing infections (even as simple as a cold) and those with HIV/AIDS. In my honest opinion, and this one is quite a rare one for me, this is a subject where the UK health services should take a page out of the US' book. MMR vaccines should be mandatory for attending school. This would place these parents in a serious catch 22, as home-education in the UK is exceptionally harder to do than in the US (as in it's virtually unheard of). It will place these parents in a position where they have a choice inoculation, segregation (no admission to public schools until immunisation) or prison (in the UK parents are fully responsible for placing their child into an educational institute and ensuring they attend, if they don't they can face jail time).
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  >home-education in the UK is exceptionally harder to do than in the US (as in it's virtually unheard of) It may well be harder in the UK, I'd be interested in the reasoning there, but I'd dispute that it's [virtually or actually] unheard of. I think you're being too tough here. Latest reports that I've looked at are that the Thiomersal used in vaccines that was associated with autism has been removed from US vaccines and that studies have since shown that there has been no corresponding decline in autism cases. In order to learn this though I had to do some research and look at some quite complex discussions. The US studies have not been popularised by the likes of the BBC that widely reported on the MMR controversy. Indeed I was studying the swine flu vaccine, http://alicious.com/2010/swine-flu-vaccine-safe/ http://alicious.com/2010/swine-flu-vaccine-safe/ , as we were offered it for our son. The NHS did have a very thorough FAQ on it. I'm still reticent about the swine-flu vaccine - they've probably had it (we all had a couple of flu like episodes in autumn-early winter), it's normally not severe, infections are declining, next season it will have mutated and this vaccine will likely provide no benefit AND most importantly this vaccine has not undergone the extensive testing that drugs normally do. We probably will have the vaccination as I have to trust our health care workers here. If we don't vaccinate and someone catches swine-flu from my son, him having nothing more than a sniffle, will I be a murderer in your eyes?

timclark 17y ago

The true scandal was the championing of the original story by the UK and worldwide media. If it had been reported responsibly and not sensationalised hardly anyone would have heard about the supposed link between vaccines and autism - read Ben Goldacre for a good discussion - http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax.

room606 17y ago
I was just about to post that link but you beat me to it. It's more than a little unfair that Wakefield is being blamed for the MMR scare when the mainstream media in the UK did everything they could to fan the flames yet remain for the most part innocent
- anamax 17y ago
  > when the mainstream media in the UK did everything they could to fan the flames yet remain for the most part innocent What definition of "innocent" are we using? They may not be liable, but they're not innocent.
  - carbocation 17y ago
    From my read of your post and that of the parent, the two of you are in agreement on that point.
    - room606 17y ago
      Yes, carbocation is correct, we are in agreement. The mainstream media still refuses to acknowledge their complicity in all of this. When all of this was going on in the UK, MMR scare stories were front page news but not once did I see a headline on the cover of newspaper proclaiming "MMR Hoax, Sorry My Bad" says . As Goldacre says, it's crazy to think that one man created this entire mess.
- bootload 17y ago
  "... I was just about to post that link but you beat me to it ..." Goldacre also came to my mind. I listened to an interview with Ben Goldacre and Robin Williams, his uncle discussing examples from his newly published book, "Bad Science" and MMR was the lead example ~ http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2008/2403358.htm http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2008/2403358.ht... Goldacre made the observation that while vaccination scares occurred in various countries a different layman explanation as to why it was scary occurred for each country. In the UK it was the link between MMR and Autism. In other countries it is something different. It's sad that mums are irrational on the subject of vaccination. It saves lives. From memory the story wasn't helped by the UK PM appearing to dither vaccinating his own child, "Blair signals support for MMR" ~ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1803609.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1803609.stm and "My son has had MMR jab, says Brown (in dig at Blair)" ~ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1509845/My-son-has-had-MMR-jab-says-Brown-in-dig-at-Blair.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1509845/My-son-has-ha... In the period January to September 2002, 32% of the stories written about MMR mentioned Leo Blair, as opposed to only 25% which mentioned Wakefield. [0] So the lack of firm leadership was also a factor. [0] The above quote is cited in wikipedia ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy#cite_note-Goldacre-2008-19 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy#cite_no... and is from an article by Goldacre in the Guardian, "The MMR hoax" ~ http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/30/mmr.health.media http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/aug/30/mmr.health.med... which has conveniently been pulled for copyright reasons.

apinstein 17y ago

Just a few weeks ago it was announced that autism can be diagnosed very early via brain scans: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100108101421.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100108101421.ht... Now it's only a matter of time before this technique should definitively prove that autism is there before vaccines so that the autism/vaccine link can be finally and thoroughly be tested (and likely debunked).

ovi256 17y ago
I would very much like it to be so, but the vaccine objectors are far from rational, it seems to me. They literally build cults of personality for their various champions, and believe with religious fervour.
- frossie 17y ago
  believe with religious fervour Did you see the reports that the panel got heckled by some women when they announced their conclusions on Wakefield? They were told of the proof that this man compromised the herd immunity of a nation and unethically experimented on children for no good reason and yet they still cheer him on. We're not in rational-land any more, Toto.

dimas 17y ago

I know that I will probably get down voted for voicing opinion against majority but I will go with it anyway. There are evidence that vaccination is not safe, contains mercury and has negative long term side effects. Also there are long lasting debates on whether the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the harm. I have looked at both sides of the argument and based on what I have read and concluded that I would not vaccinate myself or my kids(see my reasoning below). Government cares only of the short term effect and keeping society from outbreaks of deceases where they are less concerned of long term effect that will be hard to link to any past vaccinations anyways. Even the fact the insurance companies do not cover vaccination due to possibility of severe side effects poses a question why? The long trim effect of vaccine is not well studied yet. If you look at both sides of the argument, the major question is what side has more benefit for fighting. Pharmaceuticals make tons of money on vaccination and have tons of money to promote it including usage of science as well government policies. So looking at both sides where none have concrete scientifically proof on long term effect of vaccines, what side would you take thinking on benefits that each side might have in the argument as well as possessing knowledge of possible danger of vaccine including the fact that vaccine do not work 100% as well. So the ultimate question, would you put substance containing mercury in your body knowing that it will have side effect for sure what might be mild or severe in long term against some low chance possibility of getting diseases that your body will fight anyway and that having vaccinated might not even protect you against. Here is some more info for consideration: http://www.relfe.com/vaccine.html http://www.relfe.com/vaccine.html

gecko 17y ago
You'll get downvoted not because you're voicing an opinion against the majority, but because you are wrong. While there are "studies" that say that you've repeated, not are scientifically reputable, in the sense of being repeatable experiments with repeatable results conducted in a scientifically rigorous way to eliminate extraneous variables. What you are doing to your kids is an insult to mine, and I will continue to fight those who oppose vaccinations until you lose.
isleyaardvark 17y ago
A tuna fish sandwich contains mercury.

prbuckley 17y ago

I thought that the theory for linking vaccines to autism had to do with the use of methylmercury as a preservative. Methylmercury is a known neurological toxin, here is a great resource... http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/ucm096228.htm http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability... The fact that this article brings up the fact that Wakefield had a patent in the same area as his research seems fishy to me. "The panel resurrected and upheld most, if not all, of the main charges against Wakefield, such as his undeclared conflict of interest in having filed a patent relating to treatments for bowel conditions a year before his Lancet study appeared. "The panel therefore rejects the proposition put forward by your [Wakefield's] counsel that third-party perceived conflicts of interest did not fall within the relevant definition at the time," it concludes." I used to be a research scientist and it was common place for researchers (or their institutions) to file patents on research that led to publications. No one I know ever listed this sort of thing as a conflict of interest. It sounds like this counsel might be reaching to try and discredit Dr. Wakefield. Sadly their is more politics in science than most people want to believe.

tokenadult 17y ago
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=14 http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=14 "Regarding the question of vaccines and autism, for ethical reasons we cannot do a double-blind, randomized, control trial of vaccines with and without thimerosal. However, we can do the next best thing, and, indeed, we now have several good studies since 1999 that do just that. Some of these studies are epidemiological; some are ecological. What allows us to use them to reject the hypothesis that mercury in vaccines is an etiological agent that is either associated with or causes autism is a very simple but powerful prediction that the hypothesis makes. Quite simply, if the hypothesis is true and thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) cause autism (or are even merely a significant contributing factor), we would expect that the removal of thimerosal from vaccines would lead to a rapid decrease in autism incidence and prevalence within 2-5 years. "There have now been several studies that examined this very hypothesis in countries that removed thimerosal from their vaccines before the U.S. did. For example Hviid et al3 reported that autism prevalence in Denmark increased from 1991 to 1996 despite the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, while Madsen et al4 looked at the time period from 1971 to 2000 and concluded that autism diagnoses continued to increase after thimerosal was removed from vaccines. Neither study supported a causal link between TCVs and autism, and they were a prominent part of the dataset that was used by the Institute of Medicine to conclude in 2004 that there was no good evidence to support a link between TCVs and autism. A more recent study by Eric Fombonne5 in Montreal examined 27,749 children born from 1987 to 1998 attending 55 different schools. Cumulative thimerosal exposure by age 2 years was calculated for the 1987-1998 birth cohorts. This exposure ranged from 100-125 μg from 1987 to 1991, 200-225 μg from 1992 to 1995, and then none after 1996, which was when thimerosal was completely removed from vaccines in Canada. The result was that autism, ASD, and pervasive developmental disorder diagnoses continued to increase in all periods, demonstrating no relationship between TCVs and autism or ASDs. Even more recently, a large study6 failed to support a relationship between thimerosal and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, a result that led one of the investigators in the study, Sallie Bernard, a proponent of the thimerosal hypothesis, to disavow the study in a case of sour grapes, because it did not show what she had hoped that it would show."

rbanffy 17y ago

I am not aware of this specific episode. What the hell does a British sci-fi series have with vaccines and/or autism?