inquest rules Gareth Colfer-Williams death was complications of measles

[meditrina]

I thought I'd post this here as this poor man's death has been mentioned on a number of threads in this forum.

On 1 July, his inquest found that he died of natural causes, from disease: specifically giant cell pneumonia, a complication of measles.

(The Welsh epidemic is officially over, as there were no new cases in June).

And thank you Beachcomber! Yes, I was. I agree with you completely. Once again I need to thank various protagonists for making me boldly google and it confirms me in my view on this subject. I'm not sure what CaterinaJTV is talking about re- Wakefield and Japan as he certainly wasn't my reference. But Eric Fombonne who was mentioned earlier in relation to that Japan story is on one of the websites I believe someone was talking about earlier. Age of Autism - which very strongly believes in an environmental factor, probably vaccines, probably MMR, for the increase in ASD. Anyway Fombonne was apparently being charged three years ago with unethical behaviour, accessing children's medical records unfairly and various other medical misbehaviours. This is nowhere else, not even in the Quebec news, only the AGE Of Autism website, but they can't possibly post something so defamatory without it being true can they? Can anyone clear this up.

Age of Autism is hardly credible and just repeats whats on whale dodgy antivaccine website The only reference to anything against Fombonne comes from the whale website and dutifully copied in AOA. Fombonne is still firmly at Mcgill university so there seems to be no basis for any of the accusations.

I thought it was rather good actually. It's the same as someone linking to say Bad Science or a blog like the one CaterinaDTV has.

Do you think the charges were dropped? Or perhaps he was cleared? I wonder why it was kept so quiet? It would have looked dreadful for someone who gave evidence against Andrew Wakefield to be found to be guilty of that sort of unethical behaviour. He seems quite hard to take seriously as he seems to believe like JotheHot that there has been no real increase in the incidence of autistic disorders. That makes him, for me, about as credible as I suppose AgeofAutism is for you. In fact unless you are telling me you think the charges never happened, AgeofAutism would be rather more credible.

Crumbledwalnuts - I don't know what the truth is of the Fombonne ethics story.

What we do know for sure is that he publishes oddly flawed epidemiology which he then falsely claims exonerate MMR vaccines of a link to ASD. We also know that he earns money being paid by vaccine manufacturers to testify against children who reacted badly to MMR vaccines.

The Cochrane Review said of Fombonne's 2001 study that "The number and possible impact of biases in this study is so high that interpretation of the results is impossible."

His 2006 study utterly bizarrely compared vaccine uptake in one population with ASD rates in, um, a different population. (And even his skewed data was flawed!)

With that data he went on to make this utterly unfounded conclusion "The findings ruled out an association between pervasive developmental disorder and either high levels of ethylmercury exposure comparable with those experienced in the United States in the 1990s or 1- or 2-dose measles-mumps-rubella vaccinations"

Wow! That is quite a conclusion to draw from limited and flawed data in Canada comparing vaccination rates in one population with ASD rates in an entirely different population and then extrapolating this to an entirely different country and decade! I can't believe that study made it through peer review and got published. It should have been binned for that conclusion alone.

"Ruled out an association" is extremely strong (and unscientific) language for a supposedly scientific paper published in a scientific journal. Generally conclusions are much more cautious along the lines of "the data did not support evidence of a link with XXXX and YYYY"

Bruffin why is Age of Autism not credible?

Actually the AoA article was reposted on Whale - not the other way round.

Poul Thorsen

Thank you Beachcomber. What an enlightening thread. I think Age of Autism looks interesting because while I normally would only click on links to pubmed or such like, there seems to be such a media blackout on some kinds of news that these nuggets will only be available in certain places online. (I also like Jayne Donegan's website). I also found the above article on Poul Thorsen, indicted on accusations of fraud and money laundering associated with funds intended for research. Poul Thorsen was a co -author with Madsen on the supposedly definitive Danish study which also supposedly ruled out a connection between autistic disorders and MMR. That article from 2011 - I don't know what happened. There's quite a lot of detail and it's from the Atlanta Business Chronicle, not so far as I know a dodgy anti-vaccine website.

You're welcome!

Yes, the Thorsen scandal has been most embarrassing. Isn't he (and the money) still missing? He embezzled millions of dollars of funds provided by the CDC and Autism Speaks. His work in Denmark was such a bunch of bullshit too with key data purposely left out.

You might find this report from SafeMinds interesting.

What is unbelievable is that the Danish studies are still being cited as credible scientific evidence!

Age of Autism is run by parents for parents. The contributors have children on the spectrum and have become investigative journalists as a result of their personal journey with their child's condition. Lots of people like to trash it in a vague and unspecified manner but they never seem to actually address the content .

Yes I think that's it. Lots of requests for a link to a credible source, but if the link proves to be someone or some group which questions vaccines then it's instantly denounced as not credible, no matter what is actually said. It's like quoting a medical professional, which is fine so long as they are very pro-vaccine, but any dissenting voice suddenly becomes an unreliable maverick rather than the medical professional which they actually are. very lazy way of arguing

My God I had a quick look at your link. What an outrage. I suppose unless he goes back to America then proceedings won't proceed.