5 ms·

A Forgotten Pioneer of Vaccines

64 points by wallflower 14y ago

DanBC 14y ago
> And while every mother could once identify measles in a heartbeat, now even the best hospitals have to call in their eldest staff members to ask: “Is this what we think it is?” The Wakefield con has started to deliver. At least one death and over 800 cases of measles in Wales. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-22198749 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-22198749) (Population of Wales is just over 3 million people.)
- Wingman4l7 14y ago
  Not to mention record low rates of vaccination elsewhere, resulting in outbreaks of whooping cough, which has resulted in deaths of babies / small children. This has been showing up in print media in AU recently, and IIRC there's been some cases in US states like California as well.
- hga 14y ago
  I'm impressed how gently the NYT describes him and his research. Wikipedia, which also has to worry about getting sued, frankly mentions the results of the reviews (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield): "On 28 January 2010, a five-member statutory tribunal of the GMC found three dozen charges proved, including four counts of dishonesty and 12 counts involving the abuse of developmentally challenged children. The panel ruled that Wakefield had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted both against the interests of his patients, and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his published research. The Lancet immediately and fully retracted his 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC’s findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified. Wakefield was struck off the Medical Register in May 2010, with a statement identifying dishonest falsification in The Lancet research, and is barred from practicing medicine in the UK. "In January 2011, an editorial accompanying an article by Brian Deer in BMJ identified Wakefield's work as an "elaborate fraud". In a follow-up article, Deer said that Wakefield had planned to launch a venture on the back of an MMR vaccination scare that would profit from new medical tests and "litigation driven testing". In November 2011, yet another report in BMJ revealed original raw data indicating that, contrary to Wakefield's claims in The Lancet, children in his research did not have inflammatory bowel disease." That's a lot more than "retracted" and "discredited". And then there's this bottom line for the hero: "Dr. Hilleman, who might reasonably have been expected to win a Nobel Prize, got hate mail and death threats instead." I suspect he cared little about that, and a lot about the resulting childhood morbidity and mortality. Additional note: there's a very important vaccination principle known as herd immunity. If enough of the "herd" get vaccinated, then the ones for whom it doesn't take get protected because they never get exposed. You don't need the vaccination rate to drop by much for this to become a big factor.
  - rdl 14y ago
    What's a fair way to describe Wakefield? "A viable choice for the second time-machine intervention, after Hitler?"
    - masklinn 14y ago
      Many are more worthy of that than Wakefield, though his legacy has yet to fully bloom. But he's definitely good for 5mn and a punch in the face in passing.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    Yes. The full facts are amazing. Here's a simple version that I like to spread around. (http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html)
- arethuza 14y ago
  Another interesting article from the BBC about how parents now feel about not having given their kids the MMR injection: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22354895 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22354895
skannamalai 14y ago
Complete double take when I realized the little girl in the photo ended up being the CFO of the company I used to work for, and also several other companies...
arjn 14y ago
Its a pity they didn't give him the Nobel for Medicine while he was alive. He certainly deserved it. (They can't grant it posthumously)
mikecane 14y ago
>>>In 1978, having found a better rubella vaccine than his own, Dr. Hilleman asked its developer if he could use it in the M.M.R. The developer, Dr. Stanley Plotkin, then of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, was momentarily speechless. It was an expensive choice for Merck, and might have been a painful one for anyone other than Dr. Hilleman. >>>“It’s not that he didn’t have an ego. He certainly did,” Dr. Plotkin recalled in a recent interview. “But he valued excellence above that. Once he decided that this strain was better, he did what he had to do,” even if it meant sacrificing his own work. That is how the hell things used to work, not driven by damn accountants and MBAs and people who want to CYA or get all the credit.
royalsporks 14y ago
Really its a pity.

64 points by wallflower 14y ago

DanBC 14y ago

> And while every mother could once identify measles in a heartbeat, now even the best hospitals have to call in their eldest staff members to ask: “Is this what we think it is?” The Wakefield con has started to deliver. At least one death and over 800 cases of measles in Wales. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-22198749 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-22198749) (Population of Wales is just over 3 million people.)

Wingman4l7 14y ago
Not to mention record low rates of vaccination elsewhere, resulting in outbreaks of whooping cough, which has resulted in deaths of babies / small children. This has been showing up in print media in AU recently, and IIRC there's been some cases in US states like California as well.
hga 14y ago
I'm impressed how gently the NYT describes him and his research. Wikipedia, which also has to worry about getting sued, frankly mentions the results of the reviews (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield): "On 28 January 2010, a five-member statutory tribunal of the GMC found three dozen charges proved, including four counts of dishonesty and 12 counts involving the abuse of developmentally challenged children. The panel ruled that Wakefield had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant", acted both against the interests of his patients, and "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in his published research. The Lancet immediately and fully retracted his 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC’s findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified. Wakefield was struck off the Medical Register in May 2010, with a statement identifying dishonest falsification in The Lancet research, and is barred from practicing medicine in the UK. "In January 2011, an editorial accompanying an article by Brian Deer in BMJ identified Wakefield's work as an "elaborate fraud". In a follow-up article, Deer said that Wakefield had planned to launch a venture on the back of an MMR vaccination scare that would profit from new medical tests and "litigation driven testing". In November 2011, yet another report in BMJ revealed original raw data indicating that, contrary to Wakefield's claims in The Lancet, children in his research did not have inflammatory bowel disease." That's a lot more than "retracted" and "discredited". And then there's this bottom line for the hero: "Dr. Hilleman, who might reasonably have been expected to win a Nobel Prize, got hate mail and death threats instead." I suspect he cared little about that, and a lot about the resulting childhood morbidity and mortality. Additional note: there's a very important vaccination principle known as herd immunity. If enough of the "herd" get vaccinated, then the ones for whom it doesn't take get protected because they never get exposed. You don't need the vaccination rate to drop by much for this to become a big factor.
- rdl 14y ago
  What's a fair way to describe Wakefield? "A viable choice for the second time-machine intervention, after Hitler?"
  - masklinn 14y ago
    Many are more worthy of that than Wakefield, though his legacy has yet to fully bloom. But he's definitely good for 5mn and a punch in the face in passing.
- DanBC 14y ago
  Yes. The full facts are amazing. Here's a simple version that I like to spread around. (http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html)
arethuza 14y ago
Another interesting article from the BBC about how parents now feel about not having given their kids the MMR injection: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22354895 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22354895

skannamalai 14y ago

Complete double take when I realized the little girl in the photo ended up being the CFO of the company I used to work for, and also several other companies...

arjn 14y ago

Its a pity they didn't give him the Nobel for Medicine while he was alive. He certainly deserved it. (They can't grant it posthumously)

mikecane 14y ago

>>>In 1978, having found a better rubella vaccine than his own, Dr. Hilleman asked its developer if he could use it in the M.M.R. The developer, Dr. Stanley Plotkin, then of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, was momentarily speechless. It was an expensive choice for Merck, and might have been a painful one for anyone other than Dr. Hilleman. >>>“It’s not that he didn’t have an ego. He certainly did,” Dr. Plotkin recalled in a recent interview. “But he valued excellence above that. Once he decided that this strain was better, he did what he had to do,” even if it meant sacrificing his own work. That is how the hell things used to work, not driven by damn accountants and MBAs and people who want to CYA or get all the credit.

royalsporks 14y ago

Really its a pity.