6 ms·

Secret businesses aimed to exploit vaccine fears, British Medical Journal finds

63 points by J3L2404 16y ago

Alex3917 16y ago
"Wakefield met with medical school managers to discuss a joint business even while the first child to be fully investigated in his research was still in the hospital" So the heads of several medical schools knew or had strong reason to suspect the data was being cooked, and said nothing. But of course this didn't happen because the scientific establishment is corrupt, it's Hollywood's fault. Science as usual.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  The medical establishment has long been known to be corrupt or at least suspect - Elsevier was paid to make an entire fake journal so some company could publish their "article".
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    That some company had to create and entirely new journal just to publish a bogus paper doesn't really seem to support your thesis. If "the medical establishment" were really corrupt, you should be able to just publish your bogus paper in any of the established journals. In fact, your example seems to support the opposite thesis. The medical community in general is rather good at spotting and filtering out corruption.
  - cstross 16y ago
    Quick, a multiple choice exam! Elsevier is best known as being: a) A publishing company who are in the business of selling ink on paper, whose success is evaluated by their shareholders on the basis of their profitability b) A medical research organization who are in the business of pushing back the frontier of human knowledge, whose success is evaluated by their peers on the basis of their replicable research findings Answer: [ a ] (Meta: the point I'm trying to make is that the publishing houses who produce the scholarly journals are not themselves engaged in scientific research. They hold a vital position within the research community, but their actual goal is commercial success. Consequently their goals sometimes become disastrously misaligned with those of their host sector.)
    - mturmon 16y ago
      And, to take this a step farther, note that one of the most powerful forces contesting the bad influence of for-profit journals has been the research establishment itself. For instance, most of the board of Kluwer's journal Machine Learning resigned to make an open journal (JMLR, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Machine_Learning_Research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Machine_Learning_Res...). And NIH now requires free distribution of articles produced under NIH grants, after an embargo period (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/ http://publicaccess.nih.gov/)
- phren0logy 16y ago
  This type of knee-jerk over-reaction doesn't add to the discussion. Sure, there is corruption, but there is plenty of good science going on. I'd go so far as to say that the vast majority is published in good faith. Sorting out what isn't is what makes those who game the system so toxic, but good medical practice can mitigate the damage. How? By insisting on replication of highly unexpected findings across sites by different researchers, outside the influence of the private sector. To call it "science as usual" is inaccurate, and I suspect the main function is to allow you to put your own biased and untested assumptions ahead of conclusions you find unintuitive or inconvenient. This is not an attack on you, it's a statement about human nature. Everyone has this tendency innately, and the job of science is to fight hard against it by providing proof. Most of us take that pretty seriously.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  The fact that the scientific community at large suspected or outright rejected the bogus study from the beginning sure is inconvenient, isn't it? I'm baffled at people who seem to think the entire industry is committing fraud instead of just the very small number of people have supported Wakefield's paper.
  - Alex3917 16y ago
    "The fact that the scientific community at large suspected or outright rejected the bogus study from the beginning sure is inconvenient, isn't it?" No, because this is why the anti-vaccine movement started. Had they actually debunked the research in an open and transparent way instead of 'suspecting' it then vaccination rates would probably be a whole lot higher today. "I'm baffled at people who seem to think the entire industry is committing fraud instead of just the very small number of people have supported Wakefield's paper." Well, there is the fact that the pharmaceutical industry now tops not only the defense industry, but all other industries in the total amount of fraud payments for actions against the federal government under the False Claims Act. http://www.citizen.org/hrg1924 http://www.citizen.org/hrg1924
    - burgerbrain 16y ago
      "No, because this is why the anti-vaccine movement started." No. The anti-vaccine movement started because idiot parents who don't understand the scientific process wanted someone to blame for their misfortune, and because the general public remains afraid of science, preferring to hang on to their woo-woo theories and religions. "Had they actually debunked the research in an open and transparent way instead of 'suspecting' it then vaccination rates would probably be a whole lot higher today." The methods used in the study were immediately called into question in a public manner. Formal and robust 'debunkings' take time and have been done numerous times. "Well, there is the fact that the pharmaceutical industry now tops not only the defense industry, but all other industries in the total amount of fraud payments for actions against the federal government under the False Claims Act." Yes, because individual cases of fraudsters (such as Wakefield), and massive amounts of individual cases of fraud being uncovered clearly indicate that the entire industry is capable of coordinating a massive smear campaign. And not only can they apparently orchestrate a massive smear campaign across the entire industry, but they can keep it running for years. Puh-leeeaze. Sooner or later you loons are going to have to come to terms with the facts: Wakefield lied and is a piece of scum, and you are endangering lives by continuing to blindly follow his disproved and disgraced paper.
Roritharr 16y ago
And the Award for the downright most evil person on the planet 2010 goes to: Andrew Wakefield!
- jedsmith 16y ago
  Yet Jenny McCarthy continues to parrot his agenda, even in the last few days.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    I'm afraid to say that I don't think that's even surprising, even people you would presume to be more sensible than her (a certain few HN commenters for example) continue to spew this nonsense. If you think about it, these are people who have been deep in conspiracy theory territory for quite some time, and have invested a good deal of mental effort into eradicating any doubt in their own minds. They have preformed enough mental gymnastics that in their minds, any proof presented against their delusion is actually proof in support of it. Accusations of fraud only strengthen their resolve. Anyone how has objectively been following this issue for the past few years should have caught on quite some time ago, why should they only wisen up now?
kahirsch 16y ago
The BMJ article is open access and written for a general audience: http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5258.full http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5258.full
colinsidoti 16y ago
An interesting anti-vaccine argument is that of chiropractors. They often believe chiropractic is a viable alternative that poses less risk than vaccines do (which they will acknowledge is still quite small, but why risk it?). I'm mentioning this because it's the side I heard about long before Wakefield's finding was published, and people seem to think there was no anti-vaccine argument before 1998. Unfortunately this is impossible to prove, but it's interesting nonetheless. Do the research and pick a side yourself.
- Vivtek 16y ago
  The original theory of chiropractic made spinal misalignment out to be the cause of all disease. Over time, chiropractic has become less virulent as it adapted to the host organism, and in fact in many cases can be considered symbiotic.
davidj 16y ago
I'd like to post a dissenting view, but unfortunately my posts on hacker news are now censored...
davidj2 16y ago
I usually post a dissenting view here on hackernews, I never use name calling and always back up my sources. Unfortunately Hackernews has now censored my account and actively deletes my posts. I guess they feel threatened by an opposing view. "Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism." -quote from <CENSORED>

63 points by J3L2404 16y ago

"Wakefield met with medical school managers to discuss a joint business even while the first child to be fully investigated in his research was still in the hospital" So the heads of several medical schools knew or had strong reason to suspect the data was being cooked, and said nothing. But of course this didn't happen because the scientific establishment is corrupt, it's Hollywood's fault. Science as usual.

tomjen3 16y ago
The medical establishment has long been known to be corrupt or at least suspect - Elsevier was paid to make an entire fake journal so some company could publish their "article".
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  That some company had to create and entirely new journal just to publish a bogus paper doesn't really seem to support your thesis. If "the medical establishment" were really corrupt, you should be able to just publish your bogus paper in any of the established journals. In fact, your example seems to support the opposite thesis. The medical community in general is rather good at spotting and filtering out corruption.
- cstross 16y ago
  Quick, a multiple choice exam! Elsevier is best known as being: a) A publishing company who are in the business of selling ink on paper, whose success is evaluated by their shareholders on the basis of their profitability b) A medical research organization who are in the business of pushing back the frontier of human knowledge, whose success is evaluated by their peers on the basis of their replicable research findings Answer: [ a ] (Meta: the point I'm trying to make is that the publishing houses who produce the scholarly journals are not themselves engaged in scientific research. They hold a vital position within the research community, but their actual goal is commercial success. Consequently their goals sometimes become disastrously misaligned with those of their host sector.)
  - mturmon 16y ago
    And, to take this a step farther, note that one of the most powerful forces contesting the bad influence of for-profit journals has been the research establishment itself. For instance, most of the board of Kluwer's journal Machine Learning resigned to make an open journal (JMLR, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Machine_Learning_Research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Machine_Learning_Res...). And NIH now requires free distribution of articles produced under NIH grants, after an embargo period (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/ http://publicaccess.nih.gov/)
phren0logy 16y ago
This type of knee-jerk over-reaction doesn't add to the discussion. Sure, there is corruption, but there is plenty of good science going on. I'd go so far as to say that the vast majority is published in good faith. Sorting out what isn't is what makes those who game the system so toxic, but good medical practice can mitigate the damage. How? By insisting on replication of highly unexpected findings across sites by different researchers, outside the influence of the private sector. To call it "science as usual" is inaccurate, and I suspect the main function is to allow you to put your own biased and untested assumptions ahead of conclusions you find unintuitive or inconvenient. This is not an attack on you, it's a statement about human nature. Everyone has this tendency innately, and the job of science is to fight hard against it by providing proof. Most of us take that pretty seriously.
burgerbrain 16y ago
The fact that the scientific community at large suspected or outright rejected the bogus study from the beginning sure is inconvenient, isn't it? I'm baffled at people who seem to think the entire industry is committing fraud instead of just the very small number of people have supported Wakefield's paper.
- Alex3917 16y ago
  "The fact that the scientific community at large suspected or outright rejected the bogus study from the beginning sure is inconvenient, isn't it?" No, because this is why the anti-vaccine movement started. Had they actually debunked the research in an open and transparent way instead of 'suspecting' it then vaccination rates would probably be a whole lot higher today. "I'm baffled at people who seem to think the entire industry is committing fraud instead of just the very small number of people have supported Wakefield's paper." Well, there is the fact that the pharmaceutical industry now tops not only the defense industry, but all other industries in the total amount of fraud payments for actions against the federal government under the False Claims Act. http://www.citizen.org/hrg1924 http://www.citizen.org/hrg1924
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    "No, because this is why the anti-vaccine movement started." No. The anti-vaccine movement started because idiot parents who don't understand the scientific process wanted someone to blame for their misfortune, and because the general public remains afraid of science, preferring to hang on to their woo-woo theories and religions. "Had they actually debunked the research in an open and transparent way instead of 'suspecting' it then vaccination rates would probably be a whole lot higher today." The methods used in the study were immediately called into question in a public manner. Formal and robust 'debunkings' take time and have been done numerous times. "Well, there is the fact that the pharmaceutical industry now tops not only the defense industry, but all other industries in the total amount of fraud payments for actions against the federal government under the False Claims Act." Yes, because individual cases of fraudsters (such as Wakefield), and massive amounts of individual cases of fraud being uncovered clearly indicate that the entire industry is capable of coordinating a massive smear campaign. And not only can they apparently orchestrate a massive smear campaign across the entire industry, but they can keep it running for years. Puh-leeeaze. Sooner or later you loons are going to have to come to terms with the facts: Wakefield lied and is a piece of scum, and you are endangering lives by continuing to blindly follow his disproved and disgraced paper.

Roritharr 16y ago

And the Award for the downright most evil person on the planet 2010 goes to: Andrew Wakefield!

jedsmith 16y ago
Yet Jenny McCarthy continues to parrot his agenda, even in the last few days.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  I'm afraid to say that I don't think that's even surprising, even people you would presume to be more sensible than her (a certain few HN commenters for example) continue to spew this nonsense. If you think about it, these are people who have been deep in conspiracy theory territory for quite some time, and have invested a good deal of mental effort into eradicating any doubt in their own minds. They have preformed enough mental gymnastics that in their minds, any proof presented against their delusion is actually proof in support of it. Accusations of fraud only strengthen their resolve. Anyone how has objectively been following this issue for the past few years should have caught on quite some time ago, why should they only wisen up now?

kahirsch 16y ago

The BMJ article is open access and written for a general audience: http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5258.full http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5258.full

colinsidoti 16y ago

An interesting anti-vaccine argument is that of chiropractors. They often believe chiropractic is a viable alternative that poses less risk than vaccines do (which they will acknowledge is still quite small, but why risk it?). I'm mentioning this because it's the side I heard about long before Wakefield's finding was published, and people seem to think there was no anti-vaccine argument before 1998. Unfortunately this is impossible to prove, but it's interesting nonetheless. Do the research and pick a side yourself.

Vivtek 16y ago
The original theory of chiropractic made spinal misalignment out to be the cause of all disease. Over time, chiropractic has become less virulent as it adapted to the host organism, and in fact in many cases can be considered symbiotic.

davidj 16y ago

I'd like to post a dissenting view, but unfortunately my posts on hacker news are now censored...

davidj2 16y ago

I usually post a dissenting view here on hackernews, I never use name calling and always back up my sources. Unfortunately Hackernews has now censored my account and actively deletes my posts. I guess they feel threatened by an opposing view. "Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism." -quote from <CENSORED>