Wakefield found guilty by the GMC

[manfrom]

Finally the GMC stands up and takes the right decision:

www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jan/28/mmr-doctor-fail-children-gmc

Apparently there was heckling in court.

"One woman shouted: "These doctors have not failed our children. You are outrageous." She called the panel of experts "bastards" and accused the GMC of being a "kangaroo court". Another shouted: "This is a set-up."

So obviously they believe it's the right thing to do to falsify data and pay parents for blood samples at a kiddies birthday party....

[dons hat and flak jacket]

unnecessary medical experiments on children for money. yes it is frightening.

Oh and publishing a paper based on a test which one of his own students had told him could only give false positive results, resulting in a drop in vaccination, a rise in measles and the first two deaths of children for measles in 14 years. do you want more? here's wikipedia:

A 2007 hearing with the General Medical Council examined charges of professional misconduct against Wakefield and two colleagues involved in the Lancet paper.[47][48] The charges included:

• He was being paid to conduct the study by solicitors representing parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR, and failed to disclose this in his application to the Ethical Practices Sub-Committee of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust.[22]
• He ordered investigations "without the requisite paediatric qualifications".
• Acting "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in failing to disclose how patients were recruited for the study, and that some were paid to take part.
• Performing colonoscopies, colon biopsies and lumbar punctures ("spinal taps") on his research subjects without proper approval and contrary to the children's clinical interests, when these diagnostic tests were not indicated by the children's symptoms or medical history.
• Conducting the study on a basis which was not approved by the hospital's ethics committee.
• Purchasing blood samples - for £5 each - from children present at his son's birthday party, as described by Wakefield himself in a videotaped public conference.

You can read exactly what the have charged, and found him guilty of here:

www.scribd.com/doc/25983372/FACTS-WWSM-280110-Final-Complete-Corrected

While i'm at it, dameshirlyturnip's bizarre statement that the GMC didn't have a problem with the birthday party episode is rather contradicted by the statement from the hearing, which I rather presume you haven't actually read - here is the relevant paragraph if you can't be bothered - the only thing found not proved is that he didn't offer them money before taking the blood...

or maybe you think 'callous disregard' to a child's suffering is ok?

i. you did not have ethics committee approval for your
actions,
Found proved
The Panel does not accept your explanation that you did
not consider this action to be unethical or that Ethics
Committee approval was required.
ii. you took
caused blood to be taken from children in an
inappropriate social setting,
(amended) Found proved
The Panel considers that the amendment was necessary to
reflect the state of the evidence.
iii. you offered financial inducement to children in order to
obtain blood samples,
Found not proved
The Panel accepts that the children were not persuaded to
give blood by being offered money first.
iv. you showed a callous disregard for the distress and pain
that you knew or ought to have known the children involved
might suffer,
Found proved
The Panel is satisfied by your evidence that the children
were ?paid for their discomfort?(day 67p23), which it
concluded was evidence of a callous disregard.
v. in the circumstances you abused your position of trust as
a medical practitioner,
Found proved on the basis of the above findings.

b. Your conduct set out in paragraph 42.b. was such as to bring
the medical profession into disrepute;?
Found proved on the basis of the above findings

Oh for goodness sake mso, the primate study was designed to examine the vaccine schedule of the 1990s when Hep B in the west did contain thimerosal.

It isn't that difficult to understand really (and is actually stated in the study itself).

oh, right, that makes perfect sense then. to test a 20 year old vaccine by mixing a newer vaccine with a preservative. perfect sense. or complete rubbish, one or the other.

maybe you have simple answers to some of the other questions about the withdrawn paper like why were the monkeys not randomized and more critically, what mysteriously happened to half of them between the injections and the data collection? why was data from only 6 of the 13 monkeys collected? why were there only 3 controls? why did the paper get published in 3 months without appearing to go through any of the usual checks that would have rejected something with such obvious methodical flaws, particularly from someone who is known to have fraudulently presented flawed data in the past?

to anyone with half a knowledge of what constitutes proper science the paper is obviously a joke. unfortunately that description doesn't seem to fit most of the anti vaccination crowd. still, the stirring up of doubt and conspiracy keeps wakefield in his $270,000 a year job of putting special needs children through unnecessary tests, eh?

Dr Wakefield has not presented fraudulent data and he does not experiment on children for money.

Quite honestly I find the idea that people relish in believing this ridiculous and rather sick media fairy tale pretty abhorrent.

Mso I suspect that our approaches to this are too far apart for sensible discussion.

He had presented fraudulent data. it's just fact. He lied about when the experiments were conducted, he lied about how he got in contact with the children and he presented data that it is a matter or record that he knew was incorrect, namely the test he used to detect the measles virus gave false positive results. this has been confirmed by those trying to replicate his work (who have failed) and he was told this was the case by one of his own students before he published his work. to then go ahead and publish and start a public health scare which has lead to the deaths of two children so far is in my opinion criminally irresponsible. it's got nothing to do with the media either, you can go and read the scientific papers yourself if you want to. the media are the ones who created the whole bloody scare in the first place! the sick fairy tale is that vaccination causes autism when data from literally millions of children completely destroys the theory.

The only thing preventing sensible discussion here is that all the evidence is on my side and all you have is conspiracy theories and wild conjecture. My 'approach' is to look at the evidence and make my own mind up. yours seems to be to believe what a tiny minority of corrupt doctors and ex porn stars tell you is the truth.

I would love to know what you think he gets paid $270,000 a year for by his (laughably) 'not for profit' organisation if it isn't overseeing experiments on children with desperate parents. That's what it looks like to me. and the monkey study was made for one purpose only - litigation in which the authors have a vested interest. that's not a good basis for science.

Mso as I said we are coming at this too differently to have much to say to each other.

You believe that Dr Wakefield, Professor Walker Smith and Dr Murch, the Royal Free Hospital, the University of Pittsburgh and all the many scientists involved in the research linking bowel problems to autism are all dishonest plotters and have some motivation for being so (either that they are milking stupid parents for money, that they are experimenting on children or that they have a master plan to take on Big Pharma and sell vaccines to, um, Big Pharma. Not too sure how that would work).

I think that is a load of twaddle and is the stuff of nonsense and media smear campaigns.

I think it is much more likely that these scientists have stumbled upon an inconvenient, rare medical problem with a routine medical procedure. (Remember the procedure in question has been known for decades to be able to cause rare serious problems in sub groups).

I would be surprised if you read this, but for the benefit of people who have an interest in finding out more about the evidence being supposedly all on your side, here are some links.

The science that claims that Wakefield et al are wrong, is not very good, and most of it fails to even address Wakefield's hypothesis.

www.14studies.org/index.html

There is quite a lot of reading to do on this website but it looks at the main studies and gathers together in one place clear explanations of their limitations.

www.ageofautism.com/2009/08/by-julie-obradovicpart-5-in-the-14-studies-seriesi-apologize-originally- this-was-going-to-be-another-nice-calmly-written-po.html#more

This is part of a series of articles which examines the limitations of the studies in laymen's terms.

www.ageofautism.com/2009/09/mmr-overview-of-the-studies.html

Part of the same series, it is probably better to read all of Julie's articles but these two are quite to the point.

BTW mso there is NO DATA which examines whether the vaccine schedule causes autism. None, nada, zip, zero, sweet FA. Just as there is no, none, nada, zip, zero, sweet FA data which examines the vaccine schedule as a whole for safety and which examines the synergy of chemicals known to have a synergistic effect on each other.

There is limited and problematic data on whether the MMR vaccine is linked to autism and equally limited and problematic data on whether thimerosal causes autism. That's all.

We cannot claim to have the answer when we haven't even asked the right question yet.

The claim that there is scientific data which examines if the vaccine schedule as a whole is linked to autism is just plain untrue. To claim that this non-existent science has disproved any hypothesis is downright bonkers.

Also to have any credibility you can't just claim there is 'loads of evidence' you have to link to the actual studies you are talking about. (Annoying, I know, considering that all of them are flawed in terms of examining Wakefield's hypothesis.)

I know you did a link earlier but I couldn't get it to work.

Christ. where do you start. there is so much nonsense in that post, not to mention links to screechy conspiracy theory websites (do you really think age of autism is a credible source?)

you want data that the vaccine schedule doesn't cause autism. ok, how about the several huge trials involving millions of children which have compared vaccinated children with unvaccinated children and found no difference in autism rates.

you want proof that mercury doesn't cause autism. ok, apart from there being no credible mechanism why it should, how about the fact that when mercury was removed from all childhood vaccines there was no drop in the number of autism cases - in fact, there is a rise... maybe the mercury is protective against autism??

and let's look at the authors of that now withdrawn monkey paper - carol 'try me shithead' scott, a discredited psychologist, wakefield (nuff said), another 2 people actively involved in vaccine lawsuits, a crank who markets industrial chemicals as 'supplements' to cure autism and one of his students. a rather motley crew.

the vast majority of scientists in the field don't agree with you. the very few who do have been churning out junk science for many years to their own profit and to the detriment of gullible or desperate parents of disabled children. you mock me saying that these few are deceiving people but ignore your own inference that tens of thousands more reputable scientists are doing the same for some as yet unrevealed purpose.

you talk nonsense,you obviously don't understand the science, please, please just read some proper, peer reviewed science, educate yourself and then look at what you are proposing to be true through the eyes of someone who actually understands what is medicine and what isn't. I suggest you start with the book 'How to read a paper'by Trisha Greenhalgh. it is excellent and linked to below:

books.google.co.uk/books?id=_5a0UyIOx_MC&dq=how+to+read+a+paper&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en& ei=NhR8S4vsDoq80gTnrM3XBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=fals e

and really, the age of autism is second only to whale.to and davidike.com in the 'internet nutjobs with no credibility' stakes. linking to them rather damages and credibility you had left.

and asking for links to papers is just lazy. they're all out these:

scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=2001&q=vaccination+autism

let me know how many pages you get through before you find one which supports your hypothesis. your favourite scientists are in a very, very small minority. - lets look at the conclusions on just the first page shall we?

"Conclusions: These findings provide no support for an MMR associated "new variant" form of autism with developmental regression and bowel problems, and further evidence against involvement of MMR vaccine in the initiation of autism. "

"Professionals and parents can be assured that MMR is well tried and tested and one of the most successful interventions in healthcare"

"Conclusions These data do not suggest an association between MMR immunization among young children and an increase in autism occurrence."

"Interpretation

Our analyses do not support a causal association between MMR vaccine and autism. If such an association occurs, it is so rare that it could not be identified in this large regional sample.
"

"Conclusions: Because the incidence of autism among 2 to 5 year olds increased markedly among boys born in each year separately from 1988 to 1993 while MMR vaccine coverage was over 95% for successive annual birth cohorts, the data provide evidence that no correlation exists between the prevalence of MMR vaccination and the rapid increase in the risk of autism over time. The explanation for the marked increase in risk of the diagnosis of autism in the past decade remains uncertain. "

"Conclusion The results do not support a causal relationship between childhood vaccination with thimerosal-containing vaccines and development of autistic-spectrum disorders."

"Over a decade?s effort to detect all severe adverse events
associated with MMR vaccine could find no data supporting
the hypothesis that it would cause pervasive developmental
disorder or inflammatory bowel disease."

"Conclusions. We did not identify any association between MMR vaccination and encephalitis, aseptic meningitis, or autism."

"Our results do not support this hypothesis, and provide further evidence against a causal association between MMR vaccination and autism."

and that's just the first page out of 1700. your claim that there is no evidence is just wrong. and laughably so.

Whatever mso, get back to me when you are going to link to an actual study rather than refer to everyone who disagrees with you as a 'nutjob', 'a shithead', or someone who doesn't understand science.

Also can you tell me why Age of Autism is not credible rather than just asserting that is so?

Here is a link to some of the science which explains why it is biologically plausible that all the thousands of people who have witnessed their children reacting to vaccines are not the 'nutjobs' mso takes them to be.

Oh and before she starts accusing them of exploiting their sick and suffering children for financial gain here is their statement about their motivation;

"So, who are we? We are parents of children with autism. We believe vaccines have caused our children's condition. We are not litigants against vaccine manufacturers. We will not benefit financially if vaccines are ultimately proven to be the primary trigger of autism. Our motivation is truth and we want to help other parents avoid the fate that befell us. That's it. Thank you for reading our website."

www.14studies.org/ourstudies.html

X posted.

Thanks for the link.

Have to go out now will look with interest later.

Beachcomber, you are marvellous and saying good things.

(just another namechange btw )

err, beachcomber, the 'shithead' reference is what carol stott, one of the authors of the paper you cite, got a formal reprimand for sending late night obscene emails to brian deer for. her words, not mine. reputable, isn't she?

and for christ's sake i just posted a link to 1700 studies and the conclusions to the first 10 of them. what more do you want?

go on, bury your head in the sand and shout la la la la.

and if you need me to tell you why age of autism isn't a reputable source (compared to the scientific papers i've posted ffs) there's no hope for you. need i remind you that jenny McCarthy thinks her child is 'indigo', the psychic next stage of human evolution? words fail me.

Here's the carol stott story if you've not come across it before:

briandeer.com/mmr/carol-stott.htm

Look at the link i have already posted to google scholar and the search terms 'vaccination' and 'autism' it brings up all studies involving, well, vaccination and autism. and unless google are in on the global conspiracy of silence, it will bring up both positive and negative studies. I'm not going to post a link to every single one on here, you're going to have to click yourself. if you want to find out about studies involving other diseases, you could try substituting the search term 'autism' for, say, 'diabetes' or 'asthma. i can tell you that the cochrane review of mmr, whilst finding no association between mmr and autism, iirc found lower rates of asthma in vaccinated children. in fact i would rather you did it yourself because on the way you will find lots of really interesting studies. sometimes the most enlightening papers aren't the ones you were looking for.

I hope this helps. Google scholar is a wonderful tool which i use almost every day, you can use it to find out the truth about anything you like. it's just a pity that those with views they don't really want to be challenged like beachcomber don't use it, if they did they would find fairly quickly what the truth of the matter is. either that or thousands of research scientists (presumably including myself) are corrupt and part of a global conspiracy whilst the few who look to me like cranks are in fact the holders of the one free truth.

By the way, don't think for a moment immunology is my personal area of expertise, i don't research vaccines or autism myself but the skill of sorting the good evidence from the dross is fairly transferable. and when you search for vaccines and autism and the first 10 papers say there isn't any evidence of a link, chances are there isn't any evidence of a link.

Mso: there have been no large scale studies comparing wholly unvaccinated children with vaccinated children.

(In addition to which, I'm sure you know that quite often comparisons with "unvaccinated" children involve children who may have been injected with a solution containing the adjuvants and preservatives as part of the control.)

actually mso - i really wish words would fail you.

My son was fine, had his MMR , then developed gut problems and regressed. No one but no one has managed to explain to me why this happened nor why, when I help him with his gut issues ( per Wakefields theory) his ASD gets better.

It may be great fun for you to post on here about 'nutjobs' and shitheads but you seem to be posting because you have nothing better to do, rather than having any real interest in kids with autism.

Shouty, sneery posts on a subject that affects me and not the shouty sneery people really piss me off.

[sheesh]

if you are really interested in the answer to our questions, this cochrane review, although a little out of date now, answers most of them:

mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004407/pdf_fs.html

mso and beachcomber you both seem very informed about this issue so forgive me for this as I know nothing. I have no children but work with a few children with autism; they all have food allergies / bowel issues none of the parents know each other.

When I need to make an infomred decision about MMR (ie if I have children myself) I will look into this matter for myself and at the moment have no real opinion.

But MSO as you're in the "MMR is fine" camp, can I ask if you know of any studies which explain or explore a possible link between autism and bowel diseases which would explain the pattern I find with the children I work with? If it's not the MMR that causes the regressive autism are there any ideas credible as to what it might be?

I've also read that metal poisoning mimics autistic symptoms - do you know if there is any truth to this?

The only real opinion of MMR/vacines in general I don't understand is that they do contain certain metals (I think?). Pregnant women are told not to eat certain fish as there is the risk it might harm the foetus. So why are there metals in vaccinations and why are they ok? I'm sure I can find this stuff out for myself but I saw this in active and thought I would have a nose.

Mso: there are no large scale studies, as I said. There really aren't. You are talking through your hat.

and pagwatch, i'm sorry to hear about your son but as has been repeatedly demonstrated, correlation and causation are two different things. in several of wakefields subjects the gp notes reveal autistic symptoms before the vaccination. as another thread on here regarding apparent vaccination reactions which turn out to be an unrelated infection, and with countless patients i deal with who all relate every symptom they get to a known medical problem, regardless of whether they are related or not, people are really bad at spotting what is a pattern and what isn't that's why we have data instead of anecdote - because anecdotes prove nothing.