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]

Navyeyelash- really, don't ask here, the vaccine topic has several anti-vax cranks who will misinform you. My advice is to either look at the scientific literature yourself ( it's not hard really) or ask somewhere like the www.badscience.net forum where you will meet actual immunologists and others who actually know what they are talking about. But best of all is to not rely on others telling you what they think, find out for yourself.

As far as I know, no-one disputes a link between bowel problems and autism, the two have been known to be associated for some time- it is the link with vaccines which is spurious. Oh, and there us no mercury in any childhood vaccines. Removing it had no effect on autism rates incidentally.

In my opinion, not vaccinating your children puts them at far greater risk than vaccinating. But don't take my word for it, read the science yourself.

Sooty7 - I posted a link to the full cochrane review, there is a number of studies listed in there.

You really need to be more specific- studies tend to look at one thing only - are you just interested in autism? For other complications you have to look specifically for a study which covered this particular aspect ( such as respiritory disease) and search for that. I was specifically talking about autism earlier (as that was the subject of the thread). Try doing this:

scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=Vaccinated+unvaccinated+autism&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=& as_vis=0

what aspects of health? health is a very wide topic. that's what i mean when i say you need to be specific when searching for evidence.

respiritory health, susceptibility to childhood diseases, allergies, neurological problems, bowel disorders, the list goes on - all aspects of health which may be independent and entirely unrelated. a single study is unlikely to look at all these things

health is not a useful concept in proper medicine, at least not in the last 200 years... the only places you will tend to find it used is in quack alternative therapies where the more vague the claims the better.

With all due respect you are just as capable of doing that as I am and I do have other things to do. Go look..

There isn't a study Mso, I don't think you realised that.

It's what a lot of people want: a study comparing a vaccinated population with a wholly unvaccinated population. Various excuses have been made, like issues with confounding and ethics.

However the enormous use of epidemiological studies in attempts to persuade us all of the virtue of vaccines leads one to suppose that they are considered to have some value in determining health outcomes, regardless of confounding factors, differing backgrounds and health inputs and so on.

In fact many people do offer: there is an enormous community of home educated children in the United States, which is HE purely because of the mandatory vaccination requirements: so a decent sized study group there. Then there are the Amish: where I imagine you would have to account more thoroughly for confounding factors. (google Olmstead: but you'd probably not trust the source without reading).

But as no official attempt has even been made, it's probably because there is no funding for a study that would find an unvaccinated population to be physically and mentally healthier with less atopy, less auto immune disease and many, many, many fewer children on the ASD spectrum.

But you didn't know that, did you, despite your blandishments for other people to read around more.

"I do have other things to do". You are so full of shite.

Ahem, agree with above poster.

Mso that is great that you are one of those clever scientists. Shame you're of the type who seems always to be telling us that only people in white coats can understand science.

It is also great that you think specifics and details are important. Shame though that you are failing to deal in them here though!

Your link to every article under the sun that has anything to do with autism and vaccines is just a plain weird answer to the questions that arose in our discussion.

Let me remind you of the specifics.

There is a theory that a small subgroup of predisposed children react badly to vaccines and develop bowel problems and neuropsychiatric problems as a consequence. Whether the vaccine schedule, as a whole, is a factor by presenting an cumulative, synergistic immunological insult or whether one or two specific vaccines or elements of them could act as a trigger is not known, and is suspected to vary from individual to individual. In terms of predisposition issues such as; an impaired ability to process mercury and aluminium, low gluthathione production levels and mitochondrial malfunction have been identified (among others). Family medical histories of autoimmune disease, in particular diabetes, have been identified as risk factors. Children usually have similarities in their own medical histories such as recurrent ear/upper repository infections, heavy antibiotic use, heavy paracetamol use, food allergies, intolerance to casein and gluten, constipation/diarrhoea, upset sleep patterns and often eczema. Many of the children reacted at the time of vaccination by very high fever, screaming for long periods, sleep disturbances, swelling at injection site.

So that is the theory. The reason this theory has been developed is because thousands of children have been observed following this pattern.

(BTW one such observation is an anecdote, several similar observations indicate a possible mechanism, hundreds of similar observations become the basis for investigation and the development of an hypothesis of that mechanism, thousands of similar observations are what epidemiologists call 'data'.)

Although many children have been observed, in reality, compared to the high numbers vaccinated, there are statistically very few (although devastating if you are one of them). Because we are talking low numbers presenting a rare reaction most epidemiological studies will not detect an association (and cannot prove causation anyway).

Now I reckon there are two fairly solid scientific ways to go about answering this question and I'm betting that not one of the hundreds of papers mso linked to does that (or comes close to addressing the hypothesis outlined above).

Number one; conduct that study comparing vaccinated populations with unvaccinated populations and compare health outcomes. I only know of one study that has had a go at doing that but it only looked at Hep B vaccination. It found that boys who received the full round of Hep B vaccines were nine times more likely to have received special educational services than those who had received no Hep B.

Number two; conduct a primate study with monkeys which compares outcomes for vaccinated subjects and unvaccinated controls. (sound familiar?)

There is of course a third action which to my mind is the most important; to examine the children suspected of vaccine damage, try to find out what happened to them, try to treat them and try to develop screening techniques for identifying similarly at risk populations.

Now that nice Dr Wakefield is currently working on numbers 2 and 3 with the support and respect of a great many parents. The 'huge minority' of medics that mso is placing her bets on are arseing around performing strangely flawed epidemiology, acting as expert witnesses for vaccine manufactures, having secret meetings, losing data and refusing to accept that the numbers of autistic children have increased. They have repeatedly said that they don't even know what autism is let alone how to treat it. (They also categorically state that they know what autism isn't in a remarkable act of nonscientific doublespeak, they even manage to keep straight faces whilst they're saying it!).

They have however got pretty nifty white coats though.

Now there is a whole bunch of science demonstrating the biological mechanisms that are involved in developing ASD as a result of vaccination (mercury being good for the brain doesn't appear though!). This post is getting kinda long and I have to work so will post on that later.

Oh how funny, have just noticed this gem;

"health is not a useful concept in proper medicine"

What is a useful concept then? Profit?

I think it's pretty clear what mso means in the sentence you quote - ie, that studies tend to have a more specific premise than 'health' in general, so if you go searching for studies on 'health' you won't find many.

mso, would (in your opinion) a study comparing the 'health' of unvaccinated and vaccinated children be useful or feasible?

Beachcomer

'There is a theory that a small subgroup of predisposed children react badly to vaccines and develop bowel problems and neuropsychiatric problems as a consequence. Whether the vaccine schedule, as a whole, is a factor by presenting an cumulative, synergistic immunological insult or whether one or two specific vaccines or elements of them could act as a trigger is not known, and is suspected to vary from individual to individual. In terms of predisposition issues such as; an impaired ability to process mercury and aluminium, low gluthathione production levels and mitochondrial malfunction have been identified (among others). Family medical histories of autoimmune disease, in particular diabetes, have been identified as risk factors. Children usually have similarities in their own medical histories such as recurrent ear/upper repository infections, heavy antibiotic use, heavy paracetamol use, food allergies, intolerance to casein and gluten, constipation/diarrhoea, upset sleep patterns and often eczema. Many of the children reacted at the time of vaccination by very high fever, screaming for long periods, sleep disturbances, swelling at injection site.'

Forgive me as I am always interested in the way vaccines are pinpointed as the one 'trigger' and not some of the other potential 'triggers' such as those listed. For example paracetamol use - such as the study last year on looking for the relationship between the rise in asthma cases and the overuse of paracetamol. It is one thing to say that paracetamol use increases risk of developing asthma rather than considering that those children who will end up with asthma are more likely to have symptoms that parents will treat with paracetamol. In this case is it the dose of paracetamol given after the MMR that should be investigated?

Surely children who go on to develop autism/aspergers will develop it anyway? Just as anyone who develops any auto-immune disease?

How many cases of regression actually exist when MMR has been given at school entry age -or to a much older child or an adult?

Plus a study on vaccinated vs unvaccinated individuals does create problems as there are probably reasons why a person is unvaccinated - most people already have health concerns/contraindications which prevent such a study being fair. There are still too many variables in the HepB paper you listed especially as there is no indication why the special needs services were accessed - physical development? What about the parents who shun vaccinations, are they more likely to shun other interventions such as not accessing special needs services? And what about the girls - vaccination seemed to suggest they accessed SEN less?

Navyeyelash there is some literature on bowel disease and autism. I think it is slowly becoming accepted that in some autistic children the two are related and that treatment of bowel problems helps with behaviours (and of course reduces suffering and distress).

Here are some links that I have found helpful in trying to understand the puzzle that is autism.

This is a conference presentation by Dr Wakefield of Thoughtful House.

This is a conference presentation by Dr Krigsman of Thoughtful House who recently published the following study replicating some of Dr Wakefield's findings.

Krigsman's study which replicates the findings of the Lancet early report.

I put this in because it is a conference presentation given by a medic who is also a parent of an autistic child, it is an interesting read.

This is a list of research which supports the research done at Thoughtful House, there is loads of different stuff but you can click on the gastrointestinal section if that is your area of interest.

Study by Dr Wakefield which builds on the early report published in the Lancet.

Study expanding on the findings in the above study.

Hope these might be of interest.

I'm really interested in the fact that the autistic children you know present gastrointestinal symptoms.

LindenAvery the reason for the interest in the heavy use of paracetamol in a child's health history is because we know that paracetamol depletes the body's stores of glutathione. We know that many autistic children are deficient in glutathione and we know that glutathione plays an essential antioxidant role in eliminating toxins such as mercury. It is also, amongst other areas of interest, essential in influencing cytokine production which is also deregulated in many autistic children.

Of course the heavy use of paracetamol suggests that these are children who are frequently ill which in turn suggests that they are a little different to their healthier peers.

We know that there are different ways of developing the group of symptoms we call autism. One of those ways is as a result of congenital rubella syndrome, another way is following certain types of viral infection (there is a MNer to whom's son this happened).

Now we can say that these children were disposed to developing autism and that there were probably many different triggers they could have encountered which would have led to their developing ASD. Such reasoning however does not explain the current concerning increase in ASD figures which can only be accounted for by a change in a set environmental of triggers. The US government has recently decided to investigate this area (including the role of vaccines) in more depth.

Hence the interest in a vaccinated/nonvaccinated study. A well designed study would be able to adjust for confounding variables.

Thanks Beachcomber.

But an increase in ASD could be down to the increasing awareness of ASD and identifying people earlier and - as I believe I have read somewhere - we are all on the spectrum. Surely we all have our quirks and eccentricities and everyone varies in development, interpersonal skills, communication and empathy.It is such that societies value the 'standard' person able to conform.

A vaccinated/nonvaccinated single study is never going to be able to adjust for ALL the variables unless you are going to produce clones for such an experiment? Now that would be one to get through an ethics commitee.

"Increasing awareness" is a bit weak I think.

Why have we suddenly started becoming "increasingly aware" of ASD? What is the trigger?

Certainly there are more severely autistic children around, and (sorry if I'm saying something you already know) it was identified for the first time a few years after mercury was introduced into vaccines.

I think there are attempts to identify autism in adults which are deliberately aimed at obfuscating the increase among children.

From tha National Autistic Society:

The three main areas of difficulty which all people with autism share are sometimes known as the 'triad of impairments'. They are:

■difficulty with social communication
■difficulty with social interaction
■difficulty with social imagination.

Hmm so since the beginning of the human race we have never had such people - only since the appearance of mercury in vaccines.

some of the increase is ASd dx is undoubtedly down to better diagnosis and better recognition of people who may be struggling.

by that I mean (and the terminology here gets very irritating, tbh) those individuals with an ASD who are (for want of a better term) "high functioning". Broadly recognised in the wider world as those with AS or HFA (but life is not that simple, and in fact the diagnostic criteria are under review as it is not so easy as to say "oh yes, ASD but definitely high functioning")

BUT

that does not account for the rise in numbers of children like my dd1. the severe end of autism. children who could not, in any way be missed. she requires 1-to-1 teaching, has a severe language impairment, gut and bowel issues, and is very clearly autistic.

It is also ridiculous to say "we are all on the spectrum"

yes, there are traits that can be recognised in most people. and yes, each individual will have, to some extent a better or worse grasp of social interaction, social imagination and social communication. but that does not make eveybody autistic, and to say so really does belittle the struggle my dd faces each day.

read a bit more, especially about the severe end of the spectrum (I advise you not to rely onn the NAS for this) and try to see the world the way my dd does - by categorising things by smell, perhaps, or understanding things only when set to music, or how many autisitc individuals describe not being able to use more than one sense ata time (not being able to hear if they are looiking at soemthing, for eg) and then forget any notion of the "we are all on the spectrum" nonsense that you may have read.

I do think this is the consequence of widening the diagnosis: Kanner described classic autism, said he had never seen it before and deemed it incredibly rare.

So rare, that while now there are supposed to be around 1 in 150 with ASD, then it was hazarded to be between 1 in 10 thousand and 1 in 5 thousand. Classic autism was an extremely rare disorder and now it is not.

About a decade ago, some Scandinavian researchers tried to find "classically autistic" adults who'd been misdiagnosed, for example with severe schizophrenia, in institutions for the mentally impaired across I think Sweden. They found two. Sorry I can't link -- I read this study ages ago.

sorry for typos and general garbled-ness of last post, dd1 was bleating on asking for something...

x-post silver

I think that is what I mean. Sorry to hear about your dd.

actually, i think you probably put it better

dd1 is doing really well. brilliantly in fact (ignores the trashed playroom due to half term frustrations )