6 ms·

The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield

86 points by _zhqs 16y ago

philk 16y ago
This is absolutely fantastic. The sooner we put this vaccine/autism bullshit to rest the better.
- rythie 16y ago
  Don't you see the wider message on the last page? This destined to happen again, since journalists don't fact check, don't have relevant expertise and the press favour sensationalism over accuracy.
  - philk 16y ago
    Yes, and nifty cartoons like this are a great tool to make the truth more accessible to people. (On a side note we as a public get the press we deserve. If decent investigative reporting got more readers than Brad and Angelina On The Rocks!!! we might get more of it done.)
  - chris_j 16y ago
    The last page is very poignant. "Is this too much to ask?" My fear that it might be. A cynic would suggest that a newspaper's primary responsibility is not to report the news accurately to its readers but to make as much money as possible for its shareholders. It does this by selling as many papers as possible. Fact checking, expertise and accuracy are only useful when they help to sell papers.
    - weego 16y ago
      newspapers sell their reader demographic to advertisers. The actual news is an annoyance and in the past quite a costly one, which is why they are now happy just quoting twitter/blogs and cut out anyone with real journalism skills.
      - philk 16y ago
        Very good point. I find it interesting, however, that they're pursuing a strategy that will eventually render them irrelevant.
  - weego 16y ago
    And as importantly the pressure to sell paper copies leading to more and more sensationalist stories with no regard to the future beyond the next pay cheque.
  - jdminhbg 16y ago
    There's a lot of hate here for Wakefield's paper (much deserved) and for mainstream journalists (also much deserved), but the fact that it got published in the supposedly prestigious and rigorously peer-reviewed Lancet goes by nearly unmentioned. Journalists notoriously screw up their interpretations of scientific papers, but that doesn't seem to be the case here -- they accurately reported what was published in the Lancet. The problem was that it was published in such a journal at all -- once that cat was out of the bag, the rumor had all the credibility it needed.
    - nollidge 16y ago
      Surely you noticed the part of the article where Wakefield falsified data? That the paper he submitted to the Lancet was at odds with the actual clinical records at the hospital? And the fact that his damning financial connection was not disclosed to the journal? What is the journal supposed to do? They certainly couldn't have predicted that a tiny 12-person study would blow up in the way it has. In the end, they retracted the paper, which is exactly how it should have worked. Sometimes bad papers get published--peer review can't catch everything.
      - jdminhbg 16y ago
        I noticed the part where Wakefield falsified data, as well as the part where the author criticized his sample size and methodology... so why didn't the journal's peer review process notice it? I find it hard to believe they couldn't predict that a study concluding that a poorly-understood but prevalent disease among children was caused by universal vaccination wouldn't be big news. Why would the journal even consider publishing an article making claims as big as Wakefield's on the basis of a dozen study participants? The "in the end" where they retracted the paper was like six months ago, right?
        nollidge 16y ago
        > so why didn't the journal's peer review process notice it? Because peer review, like every other human endeavor, is not perfect? > I find it hard to believe they couldn't predict that a study concluding that a poorly-understood but prevalent disease among children was caused by universal vaccination wouldn't be big news. But the study did not conclude that. The paper stated "we did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described". It reported interviews with the parents talking about MMR, but did not conclude that itself. The conclusion was more about the relationship between gastrointestinal issues and autism (also false, but less obviously so). No decent scientist would draw a sweeping conclusion like "autism is caused by universal vaccination" from this study. One study--especially one so small, with no controls and no randomization--does not demonstrate causation no matter how significant the correlation. The Lancet study (false, but still subtle enough) was misinterpreted due to Wakefield's spin machine and a gullible media. And to be honest, I have no idea why they didn't retract sooner. I do hold them at fault for that.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
nhebb 16y ago
My favorite site on the subject: http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Co...
jokull 16y ago
So hard to still like Jim Carrey. He was great in "I love you Phil Morris".
- rbanffy 16y ago
  He's an actor, not a scientific advisor. He really believes this. The problem is that there is a bunch of people who readily believe his medical advice over what a certified doctor would give.
  - gregwebs 16y ago
    Most certified doctor's aren't really doing much different than Jim Carey- they have just chosen the CDC as their trusted source instead of the anecdotes that Jim Carrey uses. So I would say people are choosing anecdotes over their country's public health recommendations. I think not trusting public health recommendations is a good thing given that they are often not based on sound science. But unfortunately people are turning to anecdotes instead of critically evaluating the evidence of both sides.
    - tjmaxal 16y ago
      you seriously think that a man who has made millions as a professional liar (actor) is just as good as a army of public health officials who are dedicated to improving the lives of everyone? I think not trusting public health recommendations is a good thing given that they are often not based on sound science. Where is your critical evaluation of your own statement? Where is your proof for attacking a entire profession?
      - gregwebs 16y ago
        My point is that neither an actor, doctor, or government agency is a good source of information: you have to look at the sources they are using (and determine if they are accurately portraying the sources). The only really good public health recommendation I can think of is to wash your hands. Read the book Good Calorie, Bad Calorie if you want to learn how dietary public health recommendations are not at all based on good science. In the best case scenario our public health recommendations have generally distracted us from the truth. I would probably get heavily down-voted for discussing the worst case.
braintrust 16y ago
Rather than merely putting this whole unpleasantness behind us and moving on, I think the medical establishment (Doctors in particular) needs to take a serious look at why the public was so ready to distrust them and assume the worst. Medicine in this country is a rotten business. Hospitals have shoddy billing practices, routinely gouging their patients ($5 for a single Tylenol) and giving them vague, indecipherable bills. Doctors engage in protectionism, limiting the supply of doctors by restricting the accreditation of medical schools, ensuring that they earn more than their counterparts in any other developed nation by at least a factor of 2. Practicing physicians are also if not outright in bed with, then certainly far too close to the drug companies. I went to see a dermatologist a few years ago, and in the waiting with me and the other patients were two attractive pharmaceutical reps waiting to see the Doctor who owned the office. Doctors need to realize that trust must be earned, and can easily be lost. As of late, they haven't been doing a whole lot to deserve it. Until the medical establishment cleans up its act, you can expect many more debacles like this one to occur.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  ...routinely gouging their patients ($5 for a single Tylenol)... Items like this quickly vanish from your bill when you tell the hospital you don't have insurance. It's the insurance companies they are trying to gouge, not the patients.
  - tjmaxal 16y ago
    I think it is silly how people are so quick to blame the doctors and the hospitals, when the prices are set by the insurance companies 90% of the time. Where is the public outcry that insurance companies are price gouging and making millions off of denying sick people treatment.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      What evidence do you have that the insurance companies are price gouging? FYI, insurance companies have very low profit margins.
jgrahamc 16y ago
Just yesterday I saw a child in a local park who clearly had measles. It was a pretty rare sight not long ago, but in the part of London where I live it's trendy to not vaccinate your children.
- tjmaxal 16y ago
  That's like saying it's trendy to sexually abuse your children. These are real diseases that actually kill people. Appalling.
- rue 16y ago
  Just out of curiosity, how do you "clearly" detect measles?
allbutlost 16y ago
Ben Goldacre on badscience.net has a lot to say on this sibject, including a new related post today. http://www.badscience.net/2010/05/a-staggeringly-weak-interview-of-andrew-wakefield-on-the-today-programme/ http://www.badscience.net/2010/05/a-staggeringly-weak-interv...
fr0man 16y ago
Lumbar punctures for children in a study designed to strengthen a bogus lawsuit? Yikes! That makes me angrier at the parents that volunteered(/were paid for) their kids' participation than at the doctor. Though still pretty angry at him, too.

86 points by _zhqs 16y ago

philk 16y ago

This is absolutely fantastic. The sooner we put this vaccine/autism bullshit to rest the better.

rythie 16y ago
Don't you see the wider message on the last page? This destined to happen again, since journalists don't fact check, don't have relevant expertise and the press favour sensationalism over accuracy.
- philk 16y ago
  Yes, and nifty cartoons like this are a great tool to make the truth more accessible to people. (On a side note we as a public get the press we deserve. If decent investigative reporting got more readers than Brad and Angelina On The Rocks!!! we might get more of it done.)
- chris_j 16y ago
  The last page is very poignant. "Is this too much to ask?" My fear that it might be. A cynic would suggest that a newspaper's primary responsibility is not to report the news accurately to its readers but to make as much money as possible for its shareholders. It does this by selling as many papers as possible. Fact checking, expertise and accuracy are only useful when they help to sell papers.
  - weego 16y ago
    newspapers sell their reader demographic to advertisers. The actual news is an annoyance and in the past quite a costly one, which is why they are now happy just quoting twitter/blogs and cut out anyone with real journalism skills.
    - philk 16y ago
      Very good point. I find it interesting, however, that they're pursuing a strategy that will eventually render them irrelevant.
- weego 16y ago
  And as importantly the pressure to sell paper copies leading to more and more sensationalist stories with no regard to the future beyond the next pay cheque.
- jdminhbg 16y ago
  There's a lot of hate here for Wakefield's paper (much deserved) and for mainstream journalists (also much deserved), but the fact that it got published in the supposedly prestigious and rigorously peer-reviewed Lancet goes by nearly unmentioned. Journalists notoriously screw up their interpretations of scientific papers, but that doesn't seem to be the case here -- they accurately reported what was published in the Lancet. The problem was that it was published in such a journal at all -- once that cat was out of the bag, the rumor had all the credibility it needed.
  - nollidge 16y ago
    Surely you noticed the part of the article where Wakefield falsified data? That the paper he submitted to the Lancet was at odds with the actual clinical records at the hospital? And the fact that his damning financial connection was not disclosed to the journal? What is the journal supposed to do? They certainly couldn't have predicted that a tiny 12-person study would blow up in the way it has. In the end, they retracted the paper, which is exactly how it should have worked. Sometimes bad papers get published--peer review can't catch everything.
    - jdminhbg 16y ago
      I noticed the part where Wakefield falsified data, as well as the part where the author criticized his sample size and methodology... so why didn't the journal's peer review process notice it? I find it hard to believe they couldn't predict that a study concluding that a poorly-understood but prevalent disease among children was caused by universal vaccination wouldn't be big news. Why would the journal even consider publishing an article making claims as big as Wakefield's on the basis of a dozen study participants? The "in the end" where they retracted the paper was like six months ago, right?
      - nollidge 16y ago
        > so why didn't the journal's peer review process notice it? Because peer review, like every other human endeavor, is not perfect? > I find it hard to believe they couldn't predict that a study concluding that a poorly-understood but prevalent disease among children was caused by universal vaccination wouldn't be big news. But the study did not conclude that. The paper stated "we did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described". It reported interviews with the parents talking about MMR, but did not conclude that itself. The conclusion was more about the relationship between gastrointestinal issues and autism (also false, but less obviously so). No decent scientist would draw a sweeping conclusion like "autism is caused by universal vaccination" from this study. One study--especially one so small, with no controls and no randomization--does not demonstrate causation no matter how significant the correlation. The Lancet study (false, but still subtle enough) was misinterpreted due to Wakefield's spin machine and a gullible media. And to be honest, I have no idea why they didn't retract sooner. I do hold them at fault for that.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

nhebb 16y ago

My favorite site on the subject: http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Co...

jokull 16y ago

So hard to still like Jim Carrey. He was great in "I love you Phil Morris".

rbanffy 16y ago
He's an actor, not a scientific advisor. He really believes this. The problem is that there is a bunch of people who readily believe his medical advice over what a certified doctor would give.
- gregwebs 16y ago
  Most certified doctor's aren't really doing much different than Jim Carey- they have just chosen the CDC as their trusted source instead of the anecdotes that Jim Carrey uses. So I would say people are choosing anecdotes over their country's public health recommendations. I think not trusting public health recommendations is a good thing given that they are often not based on sound science. But unfortunately people are turning to anecdotes instead of critically evaluating the evidence of both sides.
  - tjmaxal 16y ago
    you seriously think that a man who has made millions as a professional liar (actor) is just as good as a army of public health officials who are dedicated to improving the lives of everyone? I think not trusting public health recommendations is a good thing given that they are often not based on sound science. Where is your critical evaluation of your own statement? Where is your proof for attacking a entire profession?
    - gregwebs 16y ago
      My point is that neither an actor, doctor, or government agency is a good source of information: you have to look at the sources they are using (and determine if they are accurately portraying the sources). The only really good public health recommendation I can think of is to wash your hands. Read the book Good Calorie, Bad Calorie if you want to learn how dietary public health recommendations are not at all based on good science. In the best case scenario our public health recommendations have generally distracted us from the truth. I would probably get heavily down-voted for discussing the worst case.

braintrust 16y ago

Rather than merely putting this whole unpleasantness behind us and moving on, I think the medical establishment (Doctors in particular) needs to take a serious look at why the public was so ready to distrust them and assume the worst. Medicine in this country is a rotten business. Hospitals have shoddy billing practices, routinely gouging their patients ($5 for a single Tylenol) and giving them vague, indecipherable bills. Doctors engage in protectionism, limiting the supply of doctors by restricting the accreditation of medical schools, ensuring that they earn more than their counterparts in any other developed nation by at least a factor of 2. Practicing physicians are also if not outright in bed with, then certainly far too close to the drug companies. I went to see a dermatologist a few years ago, and in the waiting with me and the other patients were two attractive pharmaceutical reps waiting to see the Doctor who owned the office. Doctors need to realize that trust must be earned, and can easily be lost. As of late, they haven't been doing a whole lot to deserve it. Until the medical establishment cleans up its act, you can expect many more debacles like this one to occur.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
...routinely gouging their patients ($5 for a single Tylenol)... Items like this quickly vanish from your bill when you tell the hospital you don't have insurance. It's the insurance companies they are trying to gouge, not the patients.
- tjmaxal 16y ago
  I think it is silly how people are so quick to blame the doctors and the hospitals, when the prices are set by the insurance companies 90% of the time. Where is the public outcry that insurance companies are price gouging and making millions off of denying sick people treatment.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    What evidence do you have that the insurance companies are price gouging? FYI, insurance companies have very low profit margins.

jgrahamc 16y ago

Just yesterday I saw a child in a local park who clearly had measles. It was a pretty rare sight not long ago, but in the part of London where I live it's trendy to not vaccinate your children.

tjmaxal 16y ago
That's like saying it's trendy to sexually abuse your children. These are real diseases that actually kill people. Appalling.
rue 16y ago
Just out of curiosity, how do you "clearly" detect measles?

allbutlost 16y ago

Ben Goldacre on badscience.net has a lot to say on this sibject, including a new related post today. http://www.badscience.net/2010/05/a-staggeringly-weak-interview-of-andrew-wakefield-on-the-today-programme/ http://www.badscience.net/2010/05/a-staggeringly-weak-interv...

fr0man 16y ago

Lumbar punctures for children in a study designed to strengthen a bogus lawsuit? Yikes! That makes me angrier at the parents that volunteered(/were paid for) their kids' participation than at the doctor. Though still pretty angry at him, too.