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.

I was talking to my SIL about this recently. Her DD is now 18 mo and hasn't been vaccinated for MMR or had single jabs for the ones available. She said she had done a lot of research and decided not to, fair enough, except she then said, when I was younger I think loads of people got measles and it's just one of those things, she'll be fine . I think she likens it to chicken pox tonsillitis.

Some parents needs to also research the effects of measles, mumps and rubella AS WELL as side effects of the vaccine. In the 1940's and 50's both my mum and dad each lost a sibling to measles. Given, treatment is likely better now but make no mistake, it can be a killer and you need a fully informed decision.

Has nobody forgotten that the Blair's refused to confirm whether Leo received MMR because it was a private, family related question. Our GPs surgery has had a notice up for years saying all the GPs children have received MMR. Did rather make one think Blair and Co knew stuff we didn't know.

twelveleggedwalk, the thing about proving and disproving things are very difficult to do. Japanese tests have been done analysing data because proper studies can not happen (not ethical) but when reviewing children with autism there is a similar range of vaccinated and not vaccinated. and when reviewing those who have been vaccinated and not vaccinated there is a similar spread of autism in both groups of children.

There is no more that can be done.

Andrew Wakefield had a financial interest in he single vaccines though. So that immediately discredits him to some extent.

The media frenzy was as much to blame and every parent who made the decision without doing any research (I'm looking at you SIL) not to vaccinate.

I think people just didn't realise how dangerous measels is. Even if there was a link to autism, I would rather take the very small risk of a child developing autism over the very big risk of a child developing measels.

I was talking about this tonight. I think one of the things which did most damage was the fact that Tony and Cherie Blair refused to vaccinate Leo (yes I know they refused to say because of 'medical confidentiality' but they blatantly hadn't'.

I didn't have a child at the time but tended to believe the NHS. Until that happened. I wouldn't have had a child vaccinated after that, how could you trust people who were telling you it was safe if they didn't believe that enough to give it to their own child.

I think they have to bear some of the responsibility for that hypocrisy.

My little boy is having it next month and I'm not concerned at all these days.

no married, it confirmed for me that many politicians are scientifically illiterate, not that they "knew" something else.

Determineda There have been hundreds and hundreds of studies done all over the world about MMR - the ONLY one that showed a link to autism was Wakefield's fraudulent one.

Please speak to your GP. The internet is full to bursting with reasonable sounding tin-pot hat wearers.

Tin foil hat, I mean.

I have a friend whose 2-year-old daughter died of measles about 15 years ago. It's not chicken pox. I didn't know her then so I don't know any details.

Reading comments like no smoke without fire must make people realise how far-reaching the consequences of the 'study' was.

But I like to blame the media too, so will also hold them responsible for picking up the story and running with it. But it started with AW.

" the lancet publishes small studies all the time. month after month how many are publicised like this"

Doesn't make them any less culpable in their decision to publish this one. They know that their decision to publish And they took years to state they had perhaps made the wrong call. During which time, damage was done to a generation.

If the then Government had been less totalitarian about forcing through dogmatic health policies and reducing choice at a time of controversy, and had instead put the aim of immunisation first (not immunisation one way only), then the situation would have been very different in terms of uptake. And single jabs, if phased out say 5 years later, would not have left the pool of unvaccinated 10-15 year olds that exist today.

Demonising one doctor is very, very convenient for both e medical establishment and the then government.

Bridget Actually, they did vaccinate. I think (rightly or wrongly) Cherie was trying to make a stand about privacy and intrusion. She picked the wrong issue, I think.

interesting commentary on the Lancet's role.

I have no problem demonising a LYING doctor, meditrina. He wasn't just mistaken, he actively lied.

YANBU. Wakefield has a lot to answer for.

Can someone stating that the Wakefield study was fraud please explain to me why. Because I read the study, read the transcripts from the hearing and I'm struggling to understand which bit is fraud. I personally disagree with Fiona Godlee, I don't see any evidence for fraud. I have read Brian Deer's supposed evidence and do not agree with his interpretation.

I know that Thorsen (the researcher who published the Danish study - oft quoted as proving the safety of MMR) is wanted for fraud (he stole grant money from the Americans, they're not happy.

I do find it worrying that it's unacceptable to raise concerns about a vaccination. Any vaccination. Go back to what Wakefield said. He stated clearly at the time that parents should not stop vaccinating, that his own children were vaccinated but they might like to think about getting the (then freely available) single jabs instead while further work was carried out. That's really not an outrageous statement in my mind. Perhaps someone could explain what's so terrible about it.

Ellie - when did he lie, about what?

We chose not to vaccinate with MMR but instead opted for single vaccines. We researched it. My family, both sides, have a variety of bowel disorders, and one of the things being mentioned a lot at the time was the idea that the children had some form of previously unrecognised bowel problem along with the autism. We did not want to risk triggering anything bowel related in our children when there was a possibility that my family was pre-disposed towards bowel issues.

As it was, DD was fine, but DS had a bowel problem he is only now growing out of, and we were glad we acted as we did. I'd blame myself if we'd gone ahead with MMR and DS had developed a worse bowel problem.

It was never about autism for us, just the bowel issues.

And mum told me she believed I'd had a bad reaction when I was vaccinated as a baby, another reason we decided to act cautiously.

I don't think that the Lancet knew that Wakefield had actually FALSIFIED results at the time. This should be more widely publicised.

First, do no harm.

(and second, look up 'smallpox')

chicaguapa - she hasn't been recorded as a measles death. I wonder how accurate the recording is, because on these threads there are always these reports and they're not in the figures.

From the HPA

^In 2006 there was one measles death in a 13 years old male who had an underlying lung condition and was taking immunosuppressive drugs. Another death in 2008 was also due to acute measles in unvaccinated child with congenital immunodeficiency whose condition did not require treatment with immunoglobulin. Prior to 2006, the last death from acute measles was in 1992.

All other measles deaths, since 1992, shown above are in older individuals and were caused by the late effects of measles. These infections were acquired during the 1980s or earlier, when epidemics of measles occurred.^

I had measles as a baby - too young to have had the single vaccine which was on offer at the time. I nearly died. This was 1981.

Please get your children vaccinated.

Can someone stating that the Wakefield study was fraud please explain to me why.

Floweryhat's post links to an article explaining what was wrong with the study and why AW was struck off.

Saintly

From the BMJ:

"Three of nine children reported with regressive autism did not have autism diagnosed at all. Only one child clearly had regressive autism;

"Despite the paper claiming that all 12 children were ?previously normal,? five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns;

"Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination;

"In nine cases, unremarkable colonic histopathology results?noting no or minimal fluctuations in inflammatory cell populations?were changed after a medical school ?research review? to ?non-specific colitis?;

"The parents of eight children were reported as blaming MMR, but 11 families made this allegation at the hospital. The exclusion of three allegations ? all giving times to onset of problems in months ? helped to create the appearance of a 14 day temporal link;

"Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded for planned litigation."

And:

"Clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare ... Who perpetrated this fraud? There is no doubt that it was Wakefield. Is it possible that he was wrong, but not dishonest: that he was so incompetent that he was unable to fairly describe the project, or to report even one of the 12 children's cases accurately? No. A great deal of thought and effort must have gone into drafting the paper to achieve the results he wanted: the discrepancies all led in one direction; misreporting was gross. Moreover, although the scale of the GMC's 217 day hearing precluded additional charges focused directly on the fraud, the panel found him guilty of dishonesty concerning the study's admissions criteria, its funding by the Legal Aid Board, and his statements about it afterwards"

More excerpts on Wakefield's Wiki page with links to the article if you'd like to see the real thing.

"10% have legitimate concerns about previous bad reactions and so on"

I'm not sure why someone has to have already suffered for her concerns to be legitimate.