How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed-

[SR1419]

This should probably go under the celebrities and pseudo-science tag as well as a number of celebs ran with this theme...



http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full


"In the first part of a special BMJ series, Brian Deer exposes the bogus data behind claims that launched a worldwide scare over the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, and reveals how the appearance of a link with autism was manufactured at a London medical school"


Feel free to put this in a more appropriate spot...

PS> Can I still call you Uncinus ?

 

[Janet D]

[This is part of a post I wrote to my CT "friends" on Facebook. It really bothers me that so few CT's even know the vaccine/autism study was a fraud, you know? I've got about 4 stubborn CT's on my current Facebook profile, and they're still talking about this as if vaccines are "bad", and it really ticks me off. A lot. So I wrote a blog about vaccines and fluoride (another strange CT), and sent them the link. I never heard back from any of them, which is fairly typical ~ Janet]


Re; Vaccines ~ The study linking autism to childhood vaccines was a hoax. Not just a hoax, but an elaborate, well orchestrated, deliberate hoax. Dr. Andrew Wakefield altered and/or misrepresented the case studies of the 12 subjects used in his 1998 study, and it was all a fraud. He’s been stripped of his medical license, and it’s impossible to gauge how much harm he’s done. “But Jenny McCarthy says a vaccine caused autism in her child!” Jenny McCarthy is not a scientist, and is a victim of a fraud. A fraud. A hoax. I wish she’d have the decency to read a few scientific papers and retract all of the harmful statements she’s made over the years, but I’m not holding my breath. I didn’t read any retractions of this bogus hoax that was so successfully propagated on many CT web sites, and in fact, I read that Infowars had Wakefield on their radio program a few months ago after he’d been stripped of his license to practice medicine. Yes, even after Wakefield and his cohorts were found to have deliberately falsified scientific data to perpetuate a massive hoax, a massive hoax that affected and still affects the lives of countless children, he was invited to be on Infowars radio. I’m sure that interview went well, seeing as how no one in the CT community ever reads anything scientific (consider that a direct challenge), and I’m sure there were no unpleasant questions asked of Mr. Wakefield. Oh, you might want to spread the word to your CT gatekeepers that since Mr. Wakefield’s license has been stripped from him, he is no longer a doctor, so he does not merit a “Dr.” before his name.

 

[Unregistered]

Came across your site, thought I would add this article

In a press release, Lewis continued:

"The grading sheets and other evidence in Wakefield's files clearly show that it is unreasonable to conclude, based on a comparison of the histological records, that Andrew Wakefield 'faked' a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Now that these records have seen the light of day, it is time for others to stop using them for this purpose as well. False allegations of research misconduct can destroy the careers of even the most accomplished and reputable scientists overnight. It may take years for them to prove their innocence; and even then the damages are often irreparable. In cases where mistakes are made, every effort should be taken to fully restore the reputations and careers of scientists who are falsely accused of research misconduct."
............
The lead researcher, Stephen J. Walker, Ph.D., was also quick to state however, that this does not necessarily mean the MMR vaccine causes autism. Still, his research notes the same connection that Wakefield's team did, which is that many autistic children have chronic bowel inflammation, and have the vaccine strain of the measles virus in their intestines.

Says Dr. Wakefield of his original 1998 findings:

"… it's been replicated in Canada, in the U.S., in Venezuela, in Italy… [but] they never get mentioned. All you ever hear is that no one else has ever been able to replicate the findings. I'm afraid that is false."

You can see a list of 28 studies from around the world that support Dr. Wakefield's controversial findings in this past article. In addition to his hotly contested MMR study, Dr. Wakefield has published dozens of peer-reviewed papers looking at the mechanism and cause of inflammatory bowel disease, and has extensively investigated the brain-bowel connection in the context of children with developmental disorders such as autism. As described below, other researchers are also doing the same …

Content from external source

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/a...utes-fraud-findings-in-dr-wakefield-case.aspx

 

[MikeC]

Except of course the claims of fraud were not actually based upon those documents - great example of shofting hte goal posts -

Fiona Godlee, the editor of the BMJ, says that the journal's conclusion of fraud was not based on the pathology but on a number of discrepancies between the children's records and the claims in the Lancet paper.

Content from external source

- http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=discredited-vaccine-autism

Lewis's arguments are pretty much torn apart on this basis and his lack of actual credibility by Brian Deer here, and "Dr Mercola" is Joe Mercola - a well known alternative medicine quack and "big pharma conspiracy" pusher.

This "new evidence" is meaningless.

 

[FuzzyUK]

I've just found this:

Vaccine Fraud Exposed: Measles and Mumps Making a Huge Comeback Because Vaccines are Designed to Fail, Say Merck Virologists
http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/201...s-are-designed-to-fail-say-merck-virologists/

 

[Trigger Hippie]

I've just found this:

Vaccine Fraud Exposed: Measles and Mumps Making a Huge Comeback Because Vaccines are Designed to Fail, Say Merck Virologists

Wait what? Is that really what the two Merck virologists are claiming?

Or is Mike Adams the one who's claiming vaccines are designed to fail?

 

[David Fraser]

Wait what? Is that really what the two Merck virologists are claiming?

Or is Mike Adams the one who's claiming vaccines are designed to fail?

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/06/27/47851.htm

The two scientists claim they were coerced into falsifying tests and data to show 95% efficiency so as to beat efficiency of the competition. Now that is really, really, bad.

Mike Adams claims that Big Pharma are designing vaccines to fail. That is really, really, mad.

 

[MikeC]

So not actually "designed to fail" at all.

Not as effective as claimed sure - possibly fraudulently - for which appropriate actin should be taken - such action being what this article is about.

 

[Trigger Hippie]

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/06/27/47851.htm

The two scientists claim they were coerced into falsifying tests and data to show 95% efficiency so as to beat efficiency of the competition. Now that is really, really, bad.

Mike Adams claims that Big Pharma are designing vaccines to fail. That is really, really, mad.

Those were rhetorical questions. I really should stop doing that and just say what I mean.

This seems to be an example of anti vaxers co-opting a case of fraud, misattributed headlines, and people not reading beyond those headlines. Krahling and Wlochowski are accusing Merck of making the vaccine appear to be more effective than it really is. Which is kind of the inverse of accusing Merck of deliberately designing a vaccine to be less effective than advertised. If I'm not mistaken?

 

[Miles Bloomer]

The primary proponent to such a theory was Andrew Wakefield. He had published a study in the Lancet - boasting a sample size of 12 individuals. Later that year, Wakefield’s medical license was revoked by the General Medical Council – citing ethical concerns regarding how he recruited the patients in his study as well as his failure to disclose that he was a paid consultant to numerous attorneys representing parents whom believed their children had been harmed by vaccination. A year later, another medical journal concluded that the paper was also fraudulent, after evidence that some of the timelines of the patient’s symptoms were misrepresented.

To this day, no evidence has been uncovered to substantiate the likes of Andrew Wakefield's claims.