to think that there is a witch hunt against Andrew Wakefield?

[MagalyZz]

I just can't believe that they're still gunning for this guy!?

Whatever you make of his research, it WAS his research and he found what he found and he should be allowed to "suggest a link"

I have a child on the spectrum who had the MMR and I do not think the MMR had anything to do with it, but I do believe Dr Wakefield that a tiny percentage of people do react very badly to this vaccine.

Leave the guy alone ffs!!

You know when you get members of the public arguing the case for mumps or rubella vaccines in infants of both sexes that you are dealing with the success of manipulated public opinion.

The MMR is an unnecessary and dangerous vaccine on that basis alone. It is also an unethical one (for those who are so keen on doctors behaving ethically - why do you not apply the same thinking here?).

Thanks and you're very welcome to those who have said nice stuff.

I stumbled across this whole sorry tale whilst trying to figure out how to help my daughter after her gut and immune system were blown apart by a vaccine. The medical system responsible basically told us to fuck off and cross our fingers that she didn't die. Saying as we got no help from the many many doctors we saw, we struck out on our own. We got a lot of help from the autistic communities. We probably owe our daughter's life to them - that is why I fight their corner now. (That and I believe in truth and integrity and I know they are right about their children because I have read the science and listened to the parents).

Sorry to come over all dramatic.

Gotta go out now, back later.

Glad you watched the videos Leonie - I agree with what you say.

'If the further research is funded by those who believe it's needed and it's not unethical then why not. But equally one could say, why not engage with the scientific community and discuss the findings (and lack of) without a pre existing belief that the hypotheis is a priori valid and worthy of research'

I think the problem is we don't know at all what goes with ASD and what doesn't: we're at a very basic level, still trying to find out quite basic information on sections of the community. It's note ven as if we can even ask a lot of the time- my boys get severe diarrhoea and stomach cramps if they ingest dairy; they don'ty pass that info on to me, I know by the state of their underclothes etc. So it is completely a process of elimionation.

And what's that Dr Whob / Sherlock quote? When you've eliminated the impossible, what's left, however improbable..... well I very much doubt that ingesrting X or being exposed to Y would cause asd at teh 1% rate we see right now, but it could in certain groups, as could exoposure in utero to whatver... who knows? I took a certain med in all my preganancies that is rated neitehr safe nor unsafe (for hyperemesis, was not optional) and I;ve never met anyone else who took the same one but if I did meet several others who had a similar presentation to my boys (although tehya re different to each other anyway but ykwim) I would starta sking many questions.

Anyway must doff my hat and leave.... packing to be done. have a good half term all.

I agree Leonie the conference videos are excellent and informative. Dr Wakefield is quite a man - he manages to be hugely dignified and humble at the same time.

As he says - this isn't about him - it is about the children and the science. He has gone where the science has led him in what he quite rightly describes as his duty.

Whenever I get a bit frustrated and despondent about this I watch him speak and am reassured by his steadfast unwavering honesty and certainty. The things he says in the Mercola interviews and the Golding video about society's moral obligations are simple but noble words. Truly a great man and obviously a world ranking scientific thinker but he really does see it as just doing his job and doing the right thing. He knows he has taken on The Man or rather The Man has taken him on. Looks like they have taken on the wrong guy - he is a formidable man in his quiet way.

Of course he knows he's right and lots of other people do too. That's why he is still here doing his duty as a doctor and a scientist by his patients.

He needs support though - public opinion is what will eventually sway this. Speaking of which I think the book is now available from US Amazon. You can get it from the Callous Disregard website and some of the money gets donated but I don't know if this is available for people outside the US.

(Loving the ironic title which is quietly sticking two fingers up to the GMC and the rest of them)

Yes Evan Harris is another weasley pawn in the game of cover your arse and deny.

he's covering up for Daddy though not for himself - how altruistic

He also has connections with industry lobby 'Sense About Science' and gets to award prizes to Goldacre for writing twaddle.

What a prince.

Actually I've just had an idea - to join the challenge Dr Wakefield has made to Dr Offit to debate in public I think we need a challenge to find some public figure/journalist/judge/medical journal/doctor/etc who has publicly spread misinformation about Wakefield who doesn't have a conflict of interest. Could be tricky.

Harris also cannot be trusted with patient confidentiality yet thinks he can accuse others of dodgy ethics.

And don't even get me started on whoever gave Deer access to children's confidential medical records so he could sneer at their colostomy bags.

beachcomber please...

Evan Harris is a hardworking constituency MP, Brian Deer is simply an investigative journalist (even if he is, personally, quite obnoxious) and Ben Goldacre is a doctor who writes a column in the Guardian. None of them are the spawn of Satan, nor are they in the pay of the GMC / big pharma / the govt / any other sinister lobby group you'd care to think up.

They are just people who have looked at the evidence and on that basis disagree with Wakefield. Making them out to be more calculating than that does your argument no favours and just makes you sound a little unhinged tbh. But I guess that's the thing with conspiracy theories.

BTW I loved the assertion earlier in the thread (or maybe the other thread) from someone saying 'one day FINALLY these truths will come out and be reported rather than being brushed under the carpet blah blah'. I don't know what country you've all been living in, but since the Wakefield drama started in 1998 there can't have been a month go by without a scare-mongering piece in the Daily Mail and most other papers about the 'dangers' of MMR, it's been all over the bloody place and with scant few sane voices allowed column inches to question it either. Now the tables are turned I can't see why you want sympathy.

Novicemama if you want to argue that Harris's father had nothing to do with the use and recall of Urabe strain MMR in the UK then I'd be really interested.

If you can make a case for the Sense About Science lobby which shows it to be benign and impartial and of independent funding then I'll consider that carefully. (Sorry scrap that - you're claiming such a lobby doesn't even exist).

If you can (and want to) defend a two bit journalist being allowed access to confidential medical files and letting the general public know he has seen them, then you go for it. (Can you imagine how it feels for the families of these children to know that Deer has had his grubby hands on their confidential intimate medical files).

I will however be mightily more interested in such ideas and opinions if you could exercise a little bit of restraint with the 'unhinged conspiracy theorist' claptrap. It's kinda tedious.

Actually I live in France and I'm not saying none of this makes the press. I'm saying it doesn't get written about intelligently and responsibly.

I don't have any opinions on the spawn of Satan or what kind of MP Harris was at this moment.

YABU

Looks like the Guardian and Zac Goldsmith are unhinged conspiracy theorists too. Not only do they think that Sense About Science exists but they think it is well dodgy.

and so it goes on.

thank you to everyone who has provided interesting, thought provoking posts, sometimes, just sometimes, it does actually feel as though this has the potential to be a reasoned debate.

novicemama - you still haven't said why you think the HOrnig study disproves wakefield's hypothesis, when it doesn't even begin to examine it.

reading through everything that has been posted, over the whole thread, but especially over the last coupleof days, where the argument FOR wakefield's hypothesisholding water has been carefully and painstakingly set out (and huge apologies to anyone who has winced reading my take on it - I have a tendency to oversimplify!) - are you really saying you've read all that, and you're still trying to sit back and claim conspiracy theory?

jsut a few simplequestions for you:

do you believe some ASD children have GI issues?

do you believe that all ASD children with GI issueshave the same issues?

have you actualy found anything wrong with the scine wakefield presented inhis 1998 paper (and any other paper, tbh, but that is the one we are discussing inparticular here)?

have you read the arguments about why somepeople think wakefield isnot guilty of gross misconduct, and why some peole think he didn't act unethically?

if so, do you have any reasoned argument as to why you think htose posts are either true or untrue?

oh, and a really easy one to finish with - have you actually read the 1998 paper? because from mostof what you have writeen over the last few days, it would appear that you haven't.

andplease don't just go off ona conspiracy theoryrant, or just say that wakefield is dishonest and lining hisownpockets, or similar.

it gets so tedious when it finally feels as though we are getting down to a rational, reasonable argument (in the debate sense, rather than squabbling) and then someone pops up and says "oooh, that wakefield, he eats babies on toast, don't you know. a total monster that man"

By 'rational reasonable argument' I assume you mean 'everyone who disagrees with you has (quite sensibly) fucked off to do other things and leave you to it' which is what has actually happened on this thread.

I will answer your questions as you have asked so nicely, , answering in CAPS to distinguish from your questions and not because I am shouting :

do you believe some ASD children have GI issues? YES

do you believe that all ASD children with GI issues have the same issues? NO IDEA

have you actualy found anything wrong with the science wakefield presented inhis 1998 paper (and any other paper, tbh, but that is the one we are discussing inparticular here)?

IT WASN'T ACTUALLY SCIENCE, SO I CAN'T REALLY JUDGE IT AS SUCH. IF HE DOES THE SAME STUDY WITH ETHICAL APPROVAL, THEN OF COURSE WE COULD DISCUSS AT IT

ps, if you have, please do let the scientific community know - they would all be very interested> THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY HAVE LOOKED INTO IT AD NAUSEUM, 99.9% OF THEM DISAGREE WITH WAKEFIELD AND ARE QUITE BORED OF HAVING TO SAY SO.

have you read the arguments about why somepeople think wakefield isnot guilty of gross misconduct, and why some peole think he didn't act unethically? YES I HAVE READ THESE ARGUMENTS. I DON'T AGREE WITH THEM AND NOR DID THE GMC

if so, do you have any reasoned argument as to why you think htose posts are either true or untrue? SOME PEOPLE HERE THINK HE DID THE RIGHT THING, EVEN AFTER THE VERDICT. THE GMC, THE PRESS AND MOST OF THE WORLD THINK HE DIDN'T. I HAPPEN TO AGREE WITH THE MAJORITY VIEW.

oh, and a really easy one to finish with - have you actually read the 1998 paper? because from mostof what you have writeen over the last few days, it would appear that you haven't.

IT DOESN'T MEET THE CRITERIA OF A SCIENTIFIC PAPER. HAVING SAID THAT, I THINK WHAT HE CAME UP WITH IN 1998 MIGHT (MIGHT) BE WORTHY OR ADDITIONAL STUDY. HOWEVER, THE CONCLUSIONS HE REACHED AND PUBLICISED WERE NOT FOUNDED, HAVE BEEN DISOWNED BY 10 OF THE 13 AUTHORS OF THE PAPER AND WERE SPREAD COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLY BY BOTH WAKEFIELD AND THE PRESS.

andplease don't just go off ona conspiracy theoryrant, or just say that wakefield is dishonest and lining hisownpockets, or similar. IF YOU CAN SAY THIS OF DEER, HARRIS AND GOLDACRE THEN I CAN CERTAIN SAY IT OF WAKEFIELD, THE EVIDENCE IS PRETTY STRONG.

no Leonie

I really can't believe I have to do this. In order for something to be considered as 'science' it has to fulfil some fairly rigorous criteria. Ethical approval. Peer review. Stuff like that. Wakefield didn't really bother with any of that stuff. That makes it (crucially) NOT SCIENCE.

That's why lots and lots (the vast majority in fact) of people in the scientific community and the general public have difficulty taking it seriously. He could have just followed the rules but he didn't. I have no idea why, perhaps you do. And given the furore, maybe he could have re-done it, but following the rules. But he hasn't. This doesn't seem to ring any alarm bells with anyone here, I don't know why.

Leonie, the video link you have posted up before. Brian Deer comes across as pretty odious but apart from that... what? cryshame is not an independent source and the whole film is deliverately emotive which isn't in its favour.

I feel terribly for these parents on the film and their children I really do, and I understand the desire to find a reason for your child being so sick.

However, all the research says that MMR is not the reason. I wish there were a simple answer, there isn't. MMR is a convenient thing to blame, and no matter what Wakefield does, some people on here will always believe him, because he answers a difficult question for them. I thought being struck off by the GMC might convince some of you that he's a charlatan, but of course not, it must be a conspiracy.

Novicemama if we can set aside Dr Wakefield for just a second. There was a whole team of people who worked with Wakefield, notably Professor Walker Smith.

Professor Walker Smith is commonly known as the grandfather of paediatric gastroenterology. He is an eminent, renowned, admired and respected figure and ranks as one of the most important clinicians in his field in the whole of Europe.

Walker Smith has just been struck off by the GMC panel for supposedly not knowing when a colonscopy is clinically indicated or not. (Wakefield as a researcher and not a clinician did not prescribe, attend or perform clinical investigative procedures. In other words he was not the one who 'experimented on children'. Just a small fact that always seems to get lost).

Walker Smith was not the only doctor in the Royal Free team who made decisions about colonscopies but he is one of the only doctors who refused to retract the interpretation of the Lancet paper. Why are the other doctors, who worked under the same ethical approval as Walker Smith, being ignored by the GMC?

Are you of the opinion that Professor Walker Smith was in this to line his own pockets too? I doubt you will find many who would agree with you.

Are you suggesting that Wakefield didn't bother with ethical approval and peer review for the 120 scientific papers he has had published (in peer reviewed journals) or are we only talking about the 1998 Lancet paper here (which was peer reviewed)?

I think we already covered the ethics stuff which basically comes down to the GMC claiming their was nothing in these children which indicated a need for clinical investigation and the most senior paediatric gastroenterologist in the country and the parents of the children saying something rather different.

The GMC would have us believe these children were not sick - which is why their angry parents demonstrated outside with pictures of their children's colostomy bags and diarrhoea filled nappies.

There's no point bothering any more.

OK then - on the basis of one highly edited, emotional, biased clip, Brian Deer must be completely evil and have a single-minded vendetta against Wakefield. What a bastard.

And the GMC, an organisation which usually does a pretty good job of covering doctor's arses when they fuck up, for some reason decided to spend 217 days deliberating on Wakefield, hearing evidence, considering the facts and deciding that he should be struck off. Obviously they were wrong. Gosh if only they'd sat and considered it for 218 days perhaps Leonie and beachcomber could have given evidence too and convinced them otherwise. Of course, people posting on mumsnet notoriously have more medical and scientific training than the GMC panel.

The Lancet was a wonderful journal when it published the paper in 1998, what a beacon of truth! But not so wonderful when it retracted the paper in 2006 and agreed it should never have been published. Oh.

And the media reporting of the GMC decision has obviously been hugely biased (the media is in fact run by Goldacre and Deer, don't you know), even though since 1998 the Daily Mail and various other media have been peddling the 'MMR causes autism' link on at least a monthly basis, causing uptake to fall and measles to rise.

Any medical or scientific professional (such as this guy) who questions Wakefield has an agenda to push and is just plain wrong. Even though 99/9% of the medical and scientific community question Wakefield's findings and methods and are frankly sick of having to do so on such a regular basis.

Oh look! you've convinced me. It's all an enormous conspiracy.