To think Andrew Wakefield has blood on his hands for causing so much distrust over the MMR?

[chicaguapa]

That's it really. He's caused so much damage with his stupid little study. It was years ago, he was struck off, the study was discredited, but people still don't get the MMR because of it.

And over the years I've attended all sorts of parent support groups. Is that weird? When you have severely disabled children? You can hardly join in most neurotypical activities can you? BTW I also attended SN mother & toddler groups.

Also the sample size is too small to generalise, given that the sample is heavily biased then the results are completely unreliable and lack validity! Therefore, when the results have been looked at with larger samples and random samples the results could not be replicated which is why it is now well established that there is no link between autism and the MMR.

I suggest if a person does not understand the basic concepts of validity, randomisation and reliability that they google these concepts prior to coming onto Mumsnet and talking out of their backsides!

Saintly,
So, before any letter of referral was sent to from her GP, parent12 had basically signed up with Dawbarns, who were in cahoots with Wakefield (something she was initially, according to her evidence, unaware of). I mean, doesn't any of this strike you as odd?
This newsletter sent by Dawbarns:
briandeer.com/wakefield/dawbarns-mailing.htm
Does all this seem to you the way to conduct a clinical trial?
Cheers.

In fact if you go back over my posts for the last 12 years in here you'll find my most common bit of advice dished out to people with kids with SN is 'find someone in the same situation as you'. Doing that saved me in the early years.

Cherries - What is your definition of a "controlled sample"?

Once we understand what you mean by that, maybe you could explain what you mean by a "properly controlled sample".

Cherries - please define autism

"Does all this seem to you the way to conduct a clinical trial?"

AW did a clinical trial? That is news to me.

Or maybe you don't really know what AW did and/or what a clinical trial is.

countrykitten,
I do aplolgise for the "cheers" thing, it's a sort of tic.
I started doing it years ago and sadly now seem unable to stop. It annoys some people quite a bit, but then I seem to annoy quite a few people anyway. On the plus side they do tend to realise who it is who is annoying them on fast moving threads.
Cheers.

I suspect that to those who have made up their minds, any amount of proof that AW is a crook and a bad scientist (who was slated for abusing autistic children in his trials using some traumatic unnecessary procedures) will fall in deaf ears. They do not require proof that the link exists, it just does apparently.

How hard is it to not write "Cheers" at the end of each post?

I don't know why people are getting at Cote. She has asked a perfectly reasonable question: why vaccinate boys and pre-pubescent girls against rubella? Many people have talked about the damage that rubella can do to the foetus, which all of us, including Cote know about, so that doesn't explain it. It would make more sense to have a public health campaign directed at women of childbearing age telling them to check their rubella status if there is any chance of them conceiving, but AFAIK, there is no such campaign.

I can think of a reason for vaccinating all babies, and that is to try to eliminate the disease totally. I don't know whether that is a realistic target or not, but if it is the aim, why isn't the NHS/Govt. upfront enough to say so?

Re Andrew Wakefield: I suspect that the debate rumbles on because something is causing increased rates of autism(s), and we need to know why, but sensible answers don't seem to be forthcoming.

magdalen please don't apologise to me! I think it was jimjams who was getting annoyed by it!

Oh and Cote now too!

currentbuns So, in a nutshell - you diagnosed the rubella yourself, ably assisted by Dr. Google

Yes, because that is what "DS' paediatrician said 'It's probably rubella' after examining him & hearing about symptoms from the past few days" means.

Well, you've amended the chain of events so frequently in this thread alone, your confusion is inevitable.
First, you wrote that you realised that dc had been infected with rubella when you 'read' about it "later on" and realised what you'd read matched the description.

Then, when asked whether you'd made this diagnosis yourself, you said you'd taken ds to a doctor who had said it "looked like rubella."

Then, when another poster said rebus could only be confirmed with a blood test, you said the doctor had told you it had to be confirmed by a blood test... and then you 'read' about it and decided it must have been rubella.

In effect, by whichever of the above versions you choose to stick to, you diagnosed this 'rubella' yourself - because there no blood test ever confirmed this apparent 'diagnosis.'

There is "report" button you can click next to each post, FYI.

I certainly wouldn't dream of reporting your posts. They speak for themselves.

Cote,
You know what, as soon as I posted I thought "Bugger, should that have been pilot study?". Makes no odds to my actual point, though, does it Cote?
Cheers.

I'm not aware of strict guidelines as to how cases in a case study are to be brought together. Are researchers not allowed to do a case study including subjects whose mothers know each other?

The parents links just prove they weren't called as witnesses. It was up to the defence team to call them. It certainly not any conspiracy to silence them.

Cote,
Do you not find anything at all unethical about getting potential research subjects to sign up to a firm of solicitors with whom you are involved? Or that the solicitors were actively trying to recruit new subjects in news letters which were simultaneously frankly scaremongers about vaccination? Or didn't you read the newsletter?
It's here:
briandeer.com/wakefield/dawbarns-mailing.htm
Or is this sort of thing run of the mill for you? I suppose performing lumbar punctures on children without the required ethical approval is likewise nothing to even raise an eyebrow at?
Cheers.

Rather than asking your own questions, please answer mine first.

Cote,
I think if you have parents recruiting other parents and at the same time suggesting to them that their child's symptoms might be due to the MMR then that's pretty wrong. As the mother (parent12) says, and remember she is pro Wakefield:
"It was she who told me there was a possible link between these types of problems and the MMR vaccine".
These were supposed to be children whose parents had noted symptoms following MMR, not parents who had been recruited and simultaneously been told that the symptoms their children were suffering were due to MMR.
Call be an old ethical fuddy-duddy, but do you think that's right?
That parent12 actually dates her linking her son's condition to the MMR was the conversation with the woman who put her in touch with Wakefield and the solicitors he was involved with. I'm not talking "strict guidelines" here.
Cheers.

Whether I you think it is "right" is irrelevant. I would like to know if there are strict guidelines to be observed re identity of subjects in case studies and whether their parents are not supposed to have any contact.

"[parents] suggesting to them [other parents] that their child's symptoms might be due to the MMR then that's pretty wrong"

Afaik AW's case study had nothing to do with the cause of autism or whether it could be caused by MMR so I can't see what harm it would do if parents were speculating about that. If I recall correctly, AW's paper that kicked off this whole thing was about gut problems of autistic children.

Jimjams - Would you clarify?

Cote,
Do you know what, it's not just me that feels this way, I'll quote from here:
briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-summary.htm
"As with the researcher, so too with his subjects. They also were not what they appeared to be. In the Lancet, the 12 children (11 boys and one girl) had been held out as merely a routine series of kids with developmental disorders and digestive symptoms, needing care from the London hospital. That so many of their parents blamed problems on one common vaccine, understandably, caused public concern. But Deer discovered that nearly all the children (aged between 2½ and 9½) had been pre-selected through MMR campaign groups, and that, at the time of their admission, most of their parents were clients and contacts of the lawyer, Barr. None of the 12 lived in London. Two were brothers. Two attended the same doctor's office, 280 miles from the Royal Free. Three were patients at another clinic. One was flown in from the United States."

Like I say, I am not asking for slavish adherence to strict guidelines. A bit of common or garden honesty would have been nice.
Does that answer your question?
Cheers.

Cote,
Have you actually read much about the Wakefield case? I mean to quote from the retracted paper:
"Onset of behavioural symptoms was associated, by the parents, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in eight of the 12 children"
How exactly are you interpreting this as not having nothing to do with the MMR?
Cheers.

No it doesn't answer my question, because I didn't ask how you "feel", much less how some other guy feels.

I asked about the guidelines for selection of subjects for case studies (not clinical trials) like AW's, and wondered if it was forbidden to have subjects whose parents know each other. Which you seemed to think.

Also, I pointed out that AW's case study and original paper had nothing to do with MMR as a cause of autism, so it is irrelevant what case subjects' mums may have told each other on this subject. Which you didn't seem to know.

That's all. It would be good to see you acknowledge that you have understood once in a while, rather than pull the debate in some other tangent like how you feel.

Don't ask why I'm expecting this from someone who can't even stop herself from writing "Cheers" at the end of each post. It's the eternal optimist in me

Obviously that should read "How exactly are you interpreting this as not having anything to do with the MMR".
I have been rendered incoherent by my astonishment.
Cheers.