Help me make sense of MMR - hype or theory

[felicity10]

OK, so I've been through a few pages of previous posts, I must be missing something because I can't make sense of it!

DD is 1 and I've had a letter about the vacs from the GP. I've heard about the MMR in the news few years ago and about the link to autism, but I just would really value your views.

Single vacs with no mumps or the MMR? Can anyone point me in the direction of key MMR issues?

I just don't want to get to the gp's and then feel like I am getting bullied into having the mmr - it is normally very no nonsense nurses who barely speak english, so will be unlikely to give me a clear answer as to any risks.

I am amazed that we have this lack of clarity in the UK.

Many thanks in advance!

"My personal irony is that, before having children, and before having to deal with my DD's situation, I thought that people who didn't vaccinate were a bit 'out there'. "

It's very different for me: I worked with people who are very dismissive of mothers and their testimonies on all sorts of things. Their view could affect the official, world, public view. So I started to take that view less seriously, when I saw the prejudice at its source.

It's a breathtaking assumption that is at the heart of this - that parents, but especially mothers, are stupid and hysterical, and that emotion clouds their judgement at every step.

When you scythe away the apparent "reasoning", which is often deeply patronising, this assumption is what you end up with - it makes me very angry.

In total agreement gooseberry.

Interesting what you say about how public opinion is manipulated on the whims of some people.

I always think this whole MMR/Wakefield thing would make a great topic for media studies. It is gob-smacking how much utter crap you can read in the press and amazing how much it then enters public opinion and then becomes 'facts' everyone 'just knows'. (But nobody, including the journos has ever bothered to check.)

I also agree with you that at the heart of all this is the notion that parents are stupid and hysterical. Just look at the attitudes on this thread.

I remember phoning my doctor to say that I thought DD was reacting badly to her DTP - he made all sorts of patronising comments about how 'a bit of a temperature is normal, calm down Mrs Beach, this is your PFB so you have got yourself all worked up at the idea of a nasty needle.'

Then he saw her - with her leg swollen up to nearly twice its size, very hot and hard and my DD all floppy.

"Merde" was what he said then whilst phoning the hospital.

Oh cripes no worries, I feel bad that I did my bit to undermine our side of the argument with rudeness - but by golly it gets on my nerves when people come on like storm troopers shouting FACT there is no evidence FACT there is no link - etc etc forever and ever.

Beachcomber your assessment is correct. And quite frankly: if you're writing about this, whose complaint do you care about - a struck off doctor or the man/lady at the DfH who'll be on the blower if you fart in the wrong vaccine direction? Who's top of your contact list?

nb there are no prizes in this quiz

Leonie, hope my post read as support too, was certainly meant to but just read it back and not sure if it did

Stata was not rude and under huge provocation. i reported this thread to mumsnet who obviously agreed with hence the number of Leonies,silverfrog, rpi etc posts that were deleted.
If yoiu just want people to agree with you then go and post on anti vaccine forums etc.
Stata posted nothing but the truth, but there was absolutely no reason to treat her the way you did.
If you lot want to be taken seriously then behaving like playground bullies is not the way to go.

Oh hello again Bruffin. I asked you a serious question upthread - are you just ignoring it or did you miss it?

I also posted some comments about the 'rival vaccine' myth - are you just ignoring it or did you miss it?

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it you who accused Dr Wakefield of 'experimenting on children' because he gave one child his patented transfer factor? At that point you seemed pretty clear on the idea that the TF was a treatment and not a prophylactic. However earlier in the thread you wanted to accuse Dr Wakefield of having patented the TF in order to compete with a vaccine, in other words you seemed convinced that the TF was a prophylactic and not a treatment.

So which is it?

You cannot really have this both ways - otherwise it looks like you wish to think that anything that Dr Wakefield does is wrong and you are not much interested in anything else!

erm, since the post of mine that was deleted (have no idea why btw - although form context it was probably because I said the BMJ article was lies or somesuch) was way before Stata even joine dthe thread I am not sure you can take that as evidence I was bullying her

perhaps if the pro vaxxers did not insist on calling the non-vaxxers delusional, attention seeking fantasists, then the non-vaxxers would not get so upset. saying "stata posted nothing but the truth" is overegging it somewhat - unless you cannot remember what was in the posts of hers that got deleted?

good question form Beachcomber - I look forward to seeing whether you bother to answer it.

Bruffin, perhaps now is a good time for the recriminations to end. I'm sure most of the posters on this thread wish they didn't know or care so much about this subject. In my experience there is an academic debating style which, while appearing superficially reasonable, comes across as infuriatingly passive aggressive. I suspect that it was this quality, unintentional or otherwise, which raised the temperature of this thread. I would hazard a guess that all of the posters you have referred to spend most of their days being doubted by others and I don't think they have posted on this thread in the expectation that everyone will agree with them. However, I imagine that they find it very difficult, as I do, to allow untruths and mischaracterisations to be asserted without challenging them particularly when those allegations come from one source whose reliability is, at least to me, highly dubious and yet is enshrined in journals of some prestige. You obviously felt strongly, as did Statalover when you thought falsehoods were being promoted. Hence, the lines being drawn. There is one fundamental component that we all should remember - for many of the people posting this isn't an academic debate, it is their life. I am sure you are sympathetic to that. People have strong views on this subject and when they think their position is in jeopardy they resort to fairly emotional tactics - we all do it. Name calling is one of those tactics but it is within our power to stop. Maybe this is the moment for that. Finally, and perhaps it is because I don't fully understand the group dynamics of this board, for me this isn't a gang, I don't consider myself part of "you lot" but I do have an appreciation for the concerns of the mothers who have first hand experience of their child's health breakdown and their refusal to give up on their children either in the way they care for them or in the way they pursue answers to the questions surrounding their child's condition.

You are very wise, thought.

I would like to say this: I think quite a lot of posts were deleted for legal reasons. There is a great deal of money and power on the other side of the argument, too much for mn to even contemplate dealing with. I asked for one of mine to be withdrawn for this reason. I know that at least one of Stata's was withdrawn for legal reasons, and possibly some of Leonie's and others, though I haven't checked back.

Most of the other deleted ones were probably mine.. though I've seen much worse left up on other threads tbh. And a lot of other posts which didn't get deleted were just as offensive, but in a different way -- sarcastic, cruel, ridiculing. In fact Bruffin's lash-out response is incredibly depressing really. This can be talked about calmly but the awful sarcasm, scorn and ridicule - when there's no reason for it - that almost always interjects from one or two voices brings the whole tone down.

I'm afraid when it does, I have always responded and allowed myself to be brought down to the same level.

Must do better. Will suck in my teeth next time.

Beachcomber if you actually read the patent it is said that it will be used as a vaccine for an mmr and measles jab because the current mmr is not safe. That is not a myth!

It will also be used for a treatment for IBS and chrones disease.

read thre patent rather than pretending it doesn't exist. It is very damning

Bruffin: there is nothing there to contradict what Beachcomber says.

Can you explain to me why you are so selective with your distrust of financial interest.

You do not seem to distrust the stupendous and overweaning financial interest of pharmaceutical companies.

But you do distrust the negligible financial interest, if any at all, of a man who in reality sacrificed his entire career, his financial security, his family life and his reputation, for a medical cause and for children he felt were abandoned and isolated.

I really do not understand how you can make such a distinction. How do you justify this?

Bruffin, I have read the patent - about twenty times actually. I have never pretended that it doesn't exist.

First of all the patent is in the name of the Royal Free Hospital. To be clear - the Royal Free owned the rights to any product/s that would be developed from said patent. If you think this patent is a massive deal, you would do better to direct your energies at the Royal Free Hospital than at Dr Wakefield.

Secondly, on reading the patent it is clear that the technology it describes is for developing a transfer factor intended to treat persistent measles infection in patients with Crohn's, IBS, etc.

The patent does mention the fact that it is possible that the TF could be adapted for use as a vaccine. It is however absolutely not a patent for a vaccine - it is a patent for a process which might be useful to vaccine technology.

It is perfectly normal for medical school hospitals/research hospitals to apply for patents for discoveries they make. It is also perfectly normal for those patents to cover potential future as yet undeveloped applications of those discoveries.

So there are quite a few difficulties with this patent notion;

1. Dr Wakefield didn't own the rights to it.

1. It is not a patent for a vaccine but for a process which may be able to be applied to vaccine technology but which in its current form is intended as a treatment for persistent viral infection as a result of vaccination.

1. It would take years to get from this patent to the production of an actual vaccine, if the technology did prove to be useful for vaccine production. From reading the patent, it appears that the TF is as yet untested in this domain.

1. It is utter fantasy to think that a lone doctor (who didn't own the rights, to a product that had not yet been developed) would be able to bring that product to market and obtain government contracts and that that would be his motivation for choosing to take on the government and some of the most powerful companies in the world.

Dr Wakefield had been telling the DoH about his doubts about measles containing vaccines for years - I believe the DoH had ignored his fears for about 6 years. He knew perfectly well what he was getting into when he published the Lancet paper - he also wrote to his colleagues at the Royal free and explained that he would tell the truth about his doubts about the MMR vaccine (doubts which were to do with Crohn's disease and autistic enterocolitis). Dr Wakefield knew he was going to be very unpopular with the DoH and with the government in general - it is utterly ludicrous to think that they were going to say "thank you very much good doctor, we'll buy a load of that vaccine that hasn't been developed yet. Oh wait a minute, we can't afford to because we have just emptied the coffers paying out in vaccine damage cases that you have acted as an expert witness for."

Brian Deer, would appear to be making this stuff up. One does have to wonder what his motivation is.

Also a question I would like to ask for fans of Mr Deer; how did he get his hands on confidential medical records?

Deer wrote recently for the BMJ claiming that Dr Wakefield had committed fraud with regard to the Lancet 12 children's medical records.

There are some problems with this accusation of Deer's.

1. As is perfectly normal, the Royal Free team did not have the children's previous medical histories - they took their own histories by questioning the parents. This is normal procedure.

1. It is normal that there were some discrepancies between the original medical records of the children which had been written by a number of medical professionals over a number of years, and histories taken on one occasion by gastroenterologists depending on parental recall some time after events.

1. These discrepancies cannot be considered fraud because the Royal Free team did not have access to the original histories. (Bit of a major problem this for Deer's tale!). We could only be dealing with fraud if Deer had proven that the details recorded in the 1998 Lancet paper were different to the details given by the parents to the Royal Free Team - Deer provides no evidence for this.

1. Deer compared the histories taken at the Royal Free and the original medical records of these children in order to make his bizarre accusation.

The question is, how did a journalist get hold of confidential medical records? And how on earth can it be that the BMJ is willing to publish an article which makes it perfectly clear that said journalist has been thumbing through children's confidential medical records? And how can it be that the BMJ is willing to publish an accusation of fraud when there is no evidence of fraud given?

The way the children involved in the Lancet paper have been treated is lamentable - shame on those who deny these children are ill and allow journalists to get their grubby hands on their medical records in order to present their parents as hysterical liars and the doctors who listen to them as frauds .

Are there no levels these people will not stoop to?

Bruffin - did you even read that link? Or just the bits that Deer highlighted? Page 7 shows the preparation method for his invention - measles virus specific transfer factor. There are several pages before that describing what it is and how it works. I suggest you read it - the highlighted bits are very obviously selected to make it look like Wakefield is talking about an alternative to the mmr vaccine which was clearly Deer's intention by the looks of things! ( I don't really know too much about the whole Wakefield Deer thing btw but that highlighting is deliberately misleading so I can see how on a quick glance you may have got that impression. )

That is interesting Leonie - I didn't know that Dr Wakefield halted the libel case for that reason.

The whole thing is just laughable (except it is not very fucking funny).

A journalist is allowed to accuse a doctor of fraud on the basis of medical histories taken by several other doctors that the journalist in question (who has no medical experience or qualifications) saw years ago.

And this in the BMJ.

And the journalist in question was the person who instigated the GMC hearing (strikes me as a pretty ginormous conflict of interest!)

Anyway it doesn't get round the fact that there was no fraud because the Royal Free team did not have access to the original records. Duuuuuhhhh!!!!

Why, oh why, oh why, do so many people suspend their critical thinking abilities and buy this crap?

Why does nobody ever seem to question that all this always is about one man - Dr Wakefield. What about the other twelve - what about the people who actually performed the investigation procedures and took the medical histories. Why do Bruffin and Stata and the like never mention these people?

I suppose it is a bit much to swallow to think that an entire team are Mad Maverick Doctors Who Experiment On Children For Cash.

Astounding that people seem to think that one doctor was able to manipulate so many people - entire research and clinical teams (including the most experienced and respected paediatric gastroenterologist in the UK), lab staff, ethics committees, hospital funding and research grant staff, peer reviewers, editors of medical journals and of course the parents of the children.

Wow - what sort of evil super hero are we dealing with here, this guy has to have magic powers!?

What doesn't add up is why he would do any of it - he had everything to lose and nothing to gain. (I guess apart from things like self-respect and doing his job as a doctor with honesty and care for patients).

(That is if we put aside the motivation of a patent he didn't own for a product that didn't exist that was going to be impossible to sell to the only potential customer. Mmmmmm.)

Let's not forget the fact that once Deer had been given access to the medical notes (by whatever means) he then twisted the facts, and selectively highlighted bits - much like his selective highlighting on the Royal Free patent - and manipulated things to try to prove his point.

This is all a matter of public record now, and it is easily shown how he lied and manipulated the truth.

Yet people still believe it. And don't want to look any further.

Because the truth is inconvenient.
Like Beach says, it would be funny if it weren't so bloody grim.

I man you just have to look at the timeline of this whole thing to see what utter bullshit is going on.

Originally the naysayers would not accept that autism rates were increasing - now they do.

Originally the naysayers would not accept that children with autism often present gastroenterological symptoms - now they do.

Originally the naysayers would not accept that there was a link between the gut and the brain in autism - now they do.

Originally the naysayers would not accept that autistic children are affected by their inability to digest certain proteins - now they do (and are trumpeting having found a drug to help with this!!).

Originally the naysayers would not accept that autistic children's behaviour is affected by their gastroenterological symptoms - now they do (and are trumpeting having found a drug to help with this!!)

Originally the naysayers would not accept that autistic children's behaviour is affected by their gastroenterological symptoms, and that the children's behavioural difficulties improve upon treatment of their gastroenterological distress - now they do (and are trumpeting having found a drug to help with this!!)

So, in other words, Dr Wakefield was right all along - and yet the persecution continues.....

I wonder if the BMJ is going to comment on the response made by Dr Wakefield.

www.vaccinesafetyfirst.com/pdf/BRIAN%20DEER%20IS%20THE%20LIAR%20.pdf

www.naturalnews.com/031116_Dr_Andrew_Wakefield_British_Medical_Journal.html

"Thus, Dr Wakefield could not have "fabricated" these findings as alleged by the British Medical Journal, which now finds itself in the position of needing to issue a retraction, or it must now expand its accusations of fraud to include Professor Walker-Smith and Dr Dhillon... essentially, the BMJ must now insist that a "conspiracy of fraud" existed among at least these three researchers, and possibly more, in order to back up its allegation that Dr Wakefield's study results were fabricated."

I wonder of the BMJ is going to go down the 'conspiracy of fraud' route?

I somehow doubt it.

BMJ has been strangely silent, Beach.

Wakefield sent his response in January - enough time has passed for the BMJ to have had time to read it through and respond.

but just silence.

which, of course, speaks volumes.

www.ageofautism.com/2011/02/fiona-godlee-of-bmj-responds-to-wakefield-questions.html

It would appear that the BMJ is trying to take a step back in time and deny the specific gastrointestinal disease autistic children present....

I think it does speak volumes rather that the only person that can be found to keep going after Dr Wakefield is Brain Deer.

Thank you for all this information and the links.

I did not know the reason for dropping the libel suit. And yet that's another thing thrown at him as an accusation.

Okay I was wondering why the BMJ would compromise itself to this extent.

But of course, in a phrase;

"The pharmaceutical company MSD (known as Merck Sharp & Dohme Limited in the UK and Merck & Co., Inc. in the US) and BMJ (British Medical Journal) Group today announced a partnership in medical education through which BMJ Learning will be made available to physicians through MSD's medical portal univadis(R)."

www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=230317

www.ageofautism.com/2011/02/mercks-medical-media-empire.html

Stata - you can come back and accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist all you like! I just joined up and signed my card.