to be a little in love with Ben Goldacre?

[entropyglitter]

Just read 'bad science' (finally) and I think I am in love.....

my favourite bit was Gillian McKeith thinking that oxygen (generated by chlorophyll) in your gut is not only plausible, but at all a good idea....

presumably this is at the same time as main lining anti-oxidants (which had been shown to increase your risk of disease rather than decrease it).

OUt of interest, given that taking blood with consent at a children's birthday party and paying £5 as a thank you is compketely legal and above board, is anyone aware of any other medical researchers recruiting blood donors for research at birthday parties?

Beach
you do yourself a disservice by justifying all that the GMC found fault with Wakefield for.

I think if you focussed on one or two sqlient points of research, you would not sound so militant and so inflexile and so comp,etely unwilling to hear a word against Wakefield.

It is incredible that tou can find ways ro excuse the birthday party blood taking. And that undermines all your other arguments.

I think you're intentionally twisting things Beach.

I'm not outraged at the taking of blood outwith a medical setting. It's perfectly fine to do so for clinical reasons or, indeed, if you have ethical committee clearance to do so for research. It's the lack of ethical committee clearance - and also the fact that he clearly wouldn't have received it for what he did - that I find disturbing.

I know nothing about Brian Deer or the BMJ acting unethically but I suspect things aren't how you present them.

I understand that parents would be furious at their child's confidential medical records being passed onto journalists without their consent. I do wonder how that was made possible.

What I don't understand that they're not furious at Wakefield. If his research was all completely legitimate and above board and ethically approved, and not influenced by money at all, he so ballsed-up his paperwork that it seemed like he was an unethical fraud and now people won't take them seriously.

I suggest a read of the Lewis Report to anyone unfamiliar with the details of the Deer/BMJ articles accusing University College London (UCL) administrators, the Royal Free Hospital, and all 13 co-authors of the Lancet study of medical fraud.

I don't like downloading random files to my PC - could you tell me what the Lewis Report is?

I'm not computer literate enough to know whether the Lewis Report is OK to download- is there a way of reading it without downloading?

Here is a discussion of what Lewis says

Incidentally, is Lewis getting his hands on children's confidential medical records ok if he is on your side?

The childrens medical records were made public as part of the gmc trial.

I'm wondering if anyone would like to donate? (I think I'll pass)

Dr Wakefield Justice Fund

I don't understand. These parents agreed to be part of a research study (presumably). The medical records were anonymised (presumably). So why can't other people examine them to verify the findings?

As long as the original informed consent was given and the medical records are anonymised, what's the problem?

So at what point were the children's medical records made public?

I would be interestednin people's views of the links between Andrew Wakefield and Generation Rescue here is a link to their shop.......!

The document is perfectly safe to download.

"Dr. Godlee's excuse for not obtaining informed consent before publishing the children's medical records is even more disturbing. Admitting that the parents are more inclined to cooperate with Dr. Wakefield on such matters, Godlee wrote: "given (a) the fact that most of the families of the patients in questionare known to be dedicated supporters of Andrew Wakefield and opponents of Brian Deer and his work and (b) the tenor of the articles that we were proposing to publish alongside David Lewis?s letter, we reasonably believed that even if we could establish contact with the patients or their families, we would not obtain consent."[19]

From page 7

A description of the report.

Umm, that is to 'Age of Autism' - can you possibly link to respected sites? One that isn't in the crankosphere please.

In any case, if the parents gave the original informed consent for medical records to be used in research and the records are anonymised, there is no breach of ethics for those same records to be used to verify the research.

It's the same as reanalysing anonymised survey data which happens to have confidential information.

The problem is that we are talking about confidential medical records that were not part of the research.

The Royal Free took their own histories.

Deer has compared these histories with histories which were not part of the Royal Free study in order to make allegations against Wakefield.

I'd be careful of insulting the parents of autistic children by implying they are cranks .

Surely the Royal free should be checking that the history is correct then!

I'd be careful of insulting the parents of autistic children by implying that age of autism is in any way representative of them

No surely Deer should not have confidential medical records that are not in the public domain and the BMJ should not be publishing information from those records without permission.

While I wouldn't be wholly surprised to find a Times Journalist acting unethically, the issue is: Even if his research was perfectly conducted, would it be reasonable to extrapolate a link between the MMR and autism from his findings?

No. 12 children whose parents reckon that their behavioural symptoms were caused by the MMR (major problems with this, of course) and who exhibit gut problems is not enough evidence. Even the authors of the study said that it wasn't enough.

And his findings haven't been replicated.

So while it might be nice to tear Wakefield down as a fraud, it is worthwhile to remember that it is not potential fraudulent behaviour and journalistic scandal that has dismissed his link between MMR and autism, but science.

Anything to say about the content Elaine or are you just going to take cheap pot shots at the messenger?

Sorry, haven't read it. Judging by the source whatever you linked to will be full of half truths, distortions and outright lies. Lifes too short. Link to a reputable source and ill gladly read it. Anyway, I'm off to bed now, need to be up in 6hours