Video of Dr Wakefield speaking at the annual meeting of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. This story IS going to come out.

[Beachcomber]

Video of Dr Wakefield speaking at the annual meeting of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. The story is coming out in the US.

Issues that come up of particular note;

The UK government's decision to use Urabe strain MMR despite information showing it to be unsafe.

Information showing Deer's BMJ articles to be defamation.

Info on how the single mumps Urabe vaccine did not cause meningitis in the way the Urabe MMR did - clear evidence of viral interference in combined live vaccines. Posing a serious question over the safety of the MMR vaccines.

How Professor Walker Smith alerted the government to the work at the Royal Free and the potential problem with the MMR in 1996.

How Dr Wakefield wrote a 250 page report on the inadequate safety data on the MMR, to highlight the problem and argue the case for single vaccines.

A copy of the ethics committe approval for the Lancet case report.

www.wellwithin1.com/WakefieldThroughGlassDarkly.pdf

A summary of the lack of rigour in MMR safety testing.

Thanks for this beachcomber, will watch it once dc is in bed.

Thank you. We knew him a little when at school. Didn't believe the stuff they said about him, and was horrified at the vilification. Did know of others who were saying the same sort of things. Those who were working on Gov funded projects either resigned or were sacked.

The association of Wakefield with the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is not going to have a positive impact on his image with the mainstream. The AAPS is a small, ultra-reactionary group of private doctors, fundamentally opposed to universal health care, abortions (falsely tying abortions to breast cancer) and immigration (with a vehemence that borders on overt racism). They play the Nazi card as an argument that "no doctor should ever work for the government again". They have AIDS denialists in their ranks. Wakefield calls them "some more enlightened physicians" - that pretty much says it all...

(he has a lovely voice though, you have got to give him that)

Thanks, Beach. Will try to have a watch a bit later.

oh, and of course he lies proves the usual shoddy research, when he says that no aseptic meningitis was reported with monovalent Urabe mumps vaccine:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2041668

Yes I knew someone would come on and post that the AAPS are fasict AIDS deniers. So now we have that out of the way perhaps some discussion of the content could be interesting! I have no interest in debating how the AAPS is perceived by government and pharma.

I note that you link to a paper from Japan, Catherina. I can only see the abstract - it would be nice to see the full paper and see if the Japanse children were being given the mumps vaccine in isolation or if they were being given it in close temporal association with other vaccines.

I say this because we have had research from Japan from the same period, used to attest to the safety of MMR (Honda paper). This research turned out to be fatally flawed as although the Japanese children did not receive the MMR they were given M, M and R singles either on the same day or very close together. It wouldn't be unexpected for the single vaccine to cause the same problems as the triple in this configuration.

Dr Wakefield is arguing for single well spaced vaccines.

Certainly it is clear from the Honda paper that simply introducing the three vaccines as separate injections is not enough. Viral interference still appears to occur. (Anyway we know that viral interference occurs because the manufacurers have to use different doses of the viruses in the triple vaccine than the doses they use in in the singles. They appear to need less of the virus in a triple than they do in a single - the viruses potentiate each other.)

I would like to know what the virus dose was of the vaccines compared in your paper Catherina - if, as one would expect, the single had a higher dose than the triple, there are some questions which need to be asked right there.

I would also like to know the severity of the meningitis in both the cases of the triple and the single - the paper you linked to says;

"Meningitis was generally mild and there were no sequelae from the illness."

But certainly for the UK, we know that not to be true for the Urabe MMR - which was why the manufacuter stopped making it. Which is quite odd because viral meningitis is not generally considered to be serious in healthy children - vaccine induced meningitis however was serious in many cases and did leave sequelae in British children.

I think accusing Dr Wakefield of lying because he fails to mention the entirely singular experience of Japan - which he has already clearly stated is the equivalent of using the MMR, in certain respects, is dishonest.

Dr Wakefield as said many times that the Honda research in Japan proves his point. These vaccines need to be given far apart. It seems the paper you have linked to may well do the same - prove his point, only this time with meningitis not ASD. (So thank you for linking to that paper I will look into it further. Very very interesting indeed.)

As I say, without having full disclosure of all the other vaccines the children in the study were given, and when they were given them, I cannot say for sure what the significance of that paper is. And neither can you I'm afraid.

But at least this demonstrates something that is at the crux of this whole sorry affair - those who do not wish Dr Wakefield to be correct and who knee-jerk and pick holes without having all the information, have little hope of having more than a tabloid level understanding of this medical (and political) scandal. Which of course is why it has been allowed to go on for so long.

I say this because we have had research from Japan from the same period, used to attest to the safety of MMR (Honda paper). This research turned out to be fatally flawed as although the Japanese children did not receive the MMR they were given M, M and R singles either on the same day or very close together. It wouldn't be unexpected for the single vaccine to cause the same problems as the triple in this configuration.

That is wrong. Japanese kids hardly get vaccinated against mumps at all, only girls get rubella vaccine. You would be hard pressed to find a child who got all three. Another of those Wakefield lies.

Rubella vaccination has been on the Japanese schedule for both boys and girls since 1994.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2041668

Japanese children receive measles vaccination and according to WHO (the five million figure of Urabe monovalent vaccine given, that Dr Wakefield cites, is a direct quote from WHO. I believe the figures concern France and Belgium as well as Japan), a fair number of them received mumps vaccine too. They also receive other vaccines which British children do not such as that for Japanese encephalitis for example.

Anyway, interesting as the vaccine schedule in Japan is, it is not actually terribly relevant to the 'meat' of Dr Wakefield's talk. He is not giving a talk on the Japanase vaccine schedule.

He is giving a talk on how the UK governent introduced a known to be unsafe MMR vaccine to the British vaccine schedule. Which is quite an extraordinary decision for them to take. One I think worthy of discussion and not something to be glossed over.

He then goes on to talk about how the Lancet knew of Wakefield's involvement in the MMR litigation and of how Brian Deer knows what he accuses Dr Wakefield of in the BBJ, to be false. I find these issues worthy of discussion too.

Now if you have information proving that Dr Wakefield is lying about the circumstances of the introduction of the Urabe MMR vaccine to the UK or about the work methods of the Royal Free gastroenterology department, that could be interesting. I suspect you do not however and are creating strawmen about Dr Wakefield lying about the Japanese vaccine schedule or about WHO information as to the safety record of the single Urabe vaccine .

Which is a derailing tactic.

Does being in favour of routine mass vaccination = supporting the reckless introduction of unsafe vaccines? Does it mean supporting the BMJ in printing tabloid style libel? Does it mean supporting journalists being given access to confidential medical records and publishing details from them including names?

Is that what it means nowadays to be ardently provaccine? Gosh, how low standards of behaviour appear to have sunk. Just so that one can be in disagreement at all costs with Dr Wakefield et al. Seems like the cost is pretty high to me.

It may be worth it to those who have something to hide, but I don't get why so many ordinary people feel the need to act as handmaidens.

What I have never understood is why incidence figures for all 3 groups (MMR, singles, no vaccine) weren't trotted out at every available opportunity. I realize it may have taken a while to collate the data but it was all there, and when the MMR/ASD scare was at it's height, I would have thought there were sufficient numbers in each group to make some sort of comparison. Even if to then, there would have been within a year or so.

That absence was, in itself, enough to make me feel suspicious of the whole thing, of the government's agenda (avoidance of compensation claims for a start), the CMO, the press. No wonder people lost confidence. And I remember very clearly how any member of the government would slide off the question or simply refuse to answer when it came up in, for instance, Question Time (and sadly not just government, but opposition members too).

The whole thing was a disgrace.

Actually, I do think the quote about the Urabe vaccine is relevant, because it fits the picture of Wakefield puckering up to a very unsavoury group of doctors, while making up things as he goes (like they do, to fit their agenda).

And yes, Wakefield might very well be right about the introduction of the riskier MMR vaccine and the reasons for that (favouring the cheaper, local vaccine over the safer, more expensive foreign vaccine). I have heard people I respect a lot more say similar things. That makes the whole performance not less distasteful and doesn't mean he is right about single Urabe vaccine and singles vs combo vaccines.

Yes I agree Jux - I found the absense of that very obvious study to speak volumes.

Catherina, 5 million doses of the monovalent Urabe vaccine were given between 1979 and 1985 (WHO figures).

If you are right about the dangers of this vaccine, with regards to meningitis, then that just makes matters even worse than how Dr Wakefield describes them in his talk.

It either means that the post marketing vaccine surveillance is so inadequate that there was a total failure to pick up on the dangers of this single vaccine, or, the Urabe MMR was produced knowing it was likely to be a dangerous vaccine.

Neither of the above are terribly reassuring and neither have anything to do with Dr Wakefield. Perhaps you should alert the relevant authorities to these extremely serious issues?

Urabe single vaccine was introduced to the UK in 1983 under the name of Pariorix - if what you claim is true this vaccine was either introduced with inadequate testing/safety data or with the knowledge that it was dangerous.

Or perhaps it was introduced because millions of doses of Urabe mumps vaccine had been given and there did not appear to be any safety issues?

I do not know for certain the answers to these questions and I don't think you do either.

I find it extremely revelatory of your priorities and values that you gloss over the introduction of the known to be dangerous Urabe MMR to the UK and that you do not comment on the Deer/BMJ conduct.

I note that you have nothing to say about the fact that the Lancet knew of Dr Wakefield's involvement in litigation well before the publishing of the Lanet paper. Nor do you have anything to say about the slide with a copy of the ethical approval for the Lancet research from the Ethics Commitee.

No, you prefer to witter on about Dr Wakefield 'lying' and 'puckering up' .

(BTW the audience have not had any involvement in the content of Dr Wakefield's talk so attacking them doesn't actually have any relevance to the issues either. HTH.)

What I found absolutely incredible was that the Urabe MMRs were licensed in the UK on the basis of American and Scandinavian safety data for an entirely different vaccine - the MMRII. And the product was fast tracked with no British clinical trials certificate! This is inexcusable and very very worrying. How can parents be expected to trust the DoH and the JCVI now?

The Urabe fiasco also highlights the total inadequacy of the Yellow Card system and indeed the safety informaion (especially that made available to the public), in general.

I highly recommend a read of Martin Walker's essay on the whole subject. As Dr Wakefield says there is more and it is bad.

Martin Walker a very credible source!

Any comment on the content or just an ad hominen attack on Martin Walker (who is an independant investigative journalist)?

(No doubt there will be some who attack it because they do not like the name of the bookstore/the haircut of the guy who introduces Dr Wakefield/the day of the week on which the talk took place .)

Not liking a book store = making up a connection between abortions and breast cancer to create false "evidence" that abortions are evil; denying affordable health care; racism?

Anything goes, as long as they are anti-vaccine, obviously.

Right so still no comments on the actual content, from the detractors.

Still not very many posters the least bit concerned that government bodies chose to introduce a known to be dangerous vaccine, using the safety data for a different vaccine. Still no concern over how no special surveillance was put in place to monitor the safety of the dangerous vaccine, and how parents were kept completely in the dark about what they were consenting to being injected into their children.

No concern over the fact that the government has never revoked the license for this dangerous vaccine. That they give one of the reasons for not revoking it as being that they may decide to use it again in the future.

No concern over the fact that because this vaccine carries a British license it is being used in developed countires today. Children are still being hurt by this vaccine thanks to the British government.

No concern over Brian Deer being given confidential medical records and knowingly misrepresenting the information they contained. No concern over the BMJ publishing that information and the editor accusing Dr Wakefield of fraud on the basis of Deer's misrepresentation.

No concern over the clear evidence that the Royal Free team had ethical approval for the Lancet paper.

No concern for the Lancet children, some of whom received this known to be dangerous vaccine.

No concern over the suppression of science that could help sick children.

Would it be fair to say no concern for the children damaged by MMR vaccines? It seems a fair conclusion to come to does it not?

Well isn't that just marvellous. What will it take for people to wake up?

Catherina I'm not interested in a debate about the AAPS. Perhpas you could start a thread if you are so keen to discuss it?

Dr Wakefield gives a similar talk no matter who it is to.

Oh and Catherina don't start with the anti-vaxxxxxine bullshit.

Caring about the government introducing a known to be dangerous triple vaccine that they have been advised not to use by the manufacturer and experts from other countries, is not being anti-vaxxxxxxine.

It is being sane.

Anyway at least we are getting a good picture of what the gung ho grab 'em and jab 'em crowd think. They support dangerous badly tested vaccines, the suppression of science, corruption, denying sick children they care they need and silencing scientists who flag up safety issues with vaccines. They support government bodies bypassing safety protocols and licensing procedures, designed to safeguard children's health. They support prestigious medical journals using confidential medical records to spread misinformation and to make false accusations of medical fraud.

And all that for a vaccine that nobody actually needed.

Jolly good.

"No concern over Brian Deer being given confidential medical records and knowingly misrepresenting the information they contained. No concern over the BMJ publishing that information and the editor accusing Dr Wakefield of fraud on the basis of Deer's misrepresentation.
"
The medical records were a matter of public record, and if you actually read the gmc transcripts you will know that they have not been misrepresented by Deer.
Martin Walkers blog on the gmc trial was a work of fantasy, he made it up as he went along, so I very much doubt anything he has to say on any subject worth listen to
more proof that wakefield misrepresents data

You make claims about the Honda paper but it is obvious that you have not even bothered to look at the vaccination rates in Japan at the time

Dr Wakefield gives a similar talk no matter who it is to.

yupp, ultra-reactionary doctors and 9/11 truthers. I know this doesn't bother you, but it bothers me. I listened to his talk for about 20 minutes. I picked one thing to look up (the bit about single Urabe vaccine never having caused meningitis), it turned out to be wrong (your pick whether it was sloppy research or a lie, neither is flattering) and it was a major point in his reasoning and that is discussing content.

I don't care much for Deer and I think (and have posted that here and tweeted it to Fiona Godlee) the BMJ was wrong to publish any medical data without consent of the parents and ethical review.

I honestly find it too tedious to sift out the one or two things that Wakefield may have gotten right in a 45 minute talk. If I want to find information about public health concerns, I will turn to other sources than Wakefield, whom I have to doubt and who is not going to change a thing, especially if he associates with the dubious audiences that he has recently picked.

Beachcomber - just reading your xxxxx post - go grab a coffee, really, you need to calm down a bit...

Oh please Deer makes out that a child with a simple ear infection 'showed signs of autism' before his MMR because his mother was concerned about the effect the ear infection could have. Except Deer fails to mention the ear infection and just mentions the mother's concern.

Godlee herself clearly states that information was published from medical records without the parent's permission.

www.hallmanwingate.com/fullpanel/uploads/files/david-lewis-bmj.pdf

"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 question are 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]

Deer claims that these children were not ill with gastroenterological disease. Here you go, here is some information on the sort of child Deer claims is not sick. To believe Deer is to support the idea that this child is not sick.

I am Josh

Deer knew perfectly well that the diagnoses of GI illness in the Lancet children were made by Professor Walker Smith and Dr Dhillon and not by Dr Wakefield. He knows what he claims in the BMJ is false, this information was discussed at the GMC hearing - at which Deer was present.

Please don't patronise me Catherina - your time would be better spent fact checking some of the posts and links on your Just The Vax blog.

"Yes I knew someone would come on and post that the AAPS are fasict AIDS deniers. So now we have that out of the way perhaps some discussion of the content could be interesting! I have no interest in debating how the AAPS is perceived by government and pharma."

Why not? Are you saying that the AAPS should not be characterised in this way? Are you saying that Wakefield's backers and supporters have no relevance?

Godlee herself clearly states that information was published from medical records without the parent's permission.

Yes, I know that, I am not ok with that, I said so. And I do spend my time with fact checking, so I know that Wakefield is a spring of falsities.