'Unprecedented' rise in measles

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link

The BBC this morning have a story about an unprecedented rise in measles cases over the last year.
I'll C+P to save you clicking the link

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There is an "unprecedented increase" in measles cases in England and Wales, experts report.

Data from the Health Protection Agency showed there were 1,217 cases of measles from January to November 2008.

And 75% of the 115 cases diagnosed in November were outside the traditional hotspot of London - in the north west, west midlands and south east.

The HPA's Dr Mary Ramsay said the rise in cases was due to "relatively low" MMR uptake over the past decade.

You are right thumbwitch, there are loads of funding issues.

This is an example of pharma funding for university research.

I'm not saying in any way that all pharma funded research is bent but it would be naive IMO to think that there is no orientation at all, ever.

Here is a World Service article on the subject.

Got to agree with you thumbwitch that BG is very talented at twisting and spinning things. I notice however that when his writing is challenged on BMJ Rapid Respones that he never shows up to defend himself. I'm not surprised given the extremely knowledgeable and articulate people who frequent the reply board.

This article is very interesting on how the different live viruses in a combined vaccine like MMR have synergestic effects. Also note how MMRV has been shown to have higher rates of serious side effects. Rather blows away the 'impossible to overload the immune system' nonsense of an argument. Here (an easy read)

Latest essay by Martin J Walker on the conflicting goals of achieving herd immunity and protecting the individual with some interesting revelations about how government works in this domain.

Bit frightening actually.

(You have to click on download and it will come up as an acrobat document, don't worry no viruses or anything, I've downloaded it and emailed it to a few people nobody has had any bother.)

Sorry link about MMRV, etc doesn't work.

Try again.

thanks beachcomber - that essay is truly disturbing and yet unsurprising.

I'd like to leave it alone, BC. But there was one error and a few other things that I disagreed with in your post. I'm posting the following not so much for your benefit as for those who might be lurking.

Actually, the title of the piece I quoted was 'Blame the drug companies... and yourself', and it contained a rather elegant analysis of how a lazy, tax-shy society allows itself to be conned by the pharmaceuticals industry. Here is some more: a condemnation of CAM, yes, but even more so of the drug companies.

'When you've been working with bullshit for as long as I have, you start to spot recurring themes: quacks and the pharmaceutical industry use the exact same tricks to sell their pills... Pharmaceutical companies with serotonergic antidepressant drugs to sell have worked hard, in their direct-to-consumer advertisements and their lobbying, to push the ''serotonin hypothesis'' for depression even though the scientific evidence for this theory is growing thinner every year?

'The pharmaceutical industry is in trouble: the golden age of medicine has creaked to a halt, the low-hanging fruit of medical research has all been harvested, and the industry is rapidly running out of new drugs... So the story of ''disease mongering'' goes like this: because they cannot find new treatments for the diseases we already have, the pill companies have instead had to invent new diseases for the treatments they already have... There is no glamour in ''enabling environments'' that naturally promote exercise, or urban planning measures that prioritise cyclists, pedestrians and public transport over the car. There are no votes, it seems, in reducing the ever-increasing inequality between senior executive and shop-floor pay.'

BG might be absolutely wrong about MMR; he might have made errors (as, I believe, is the way of human beings) and failed to acknowledge them; he might refuse to engage with his critics. But this notion that he is a stooge of Big Pharma simply doesn't hold water.

I'm happy to continue the discussion with you policywonk if you think there is more to be said about it. I just didn't want to go on and on about my own POV.

I really thought that you were quoting from this piece which certainly here is titled "Don't Blame the Drug Companies".

It would appear that the same piece is on the Bad Science blog under a different title and that it was a change on the part of the editiors. I tend to avoid the blog because I dislike its mocking tone and many factual errors and overuse of the word 'quack'. I don't think this piece is elegant at all but slick. The implication that it is the average Joe's fault if pharma/corporatism has been allowed to infiltrate government/funding/health policy/research grant decisions as much as it has utterly derisive. This situation is purely the responsibility of pharma and the state. It is either very naive or very cunning to imply otherwise. Somehow, I don't think that Goldacre is naive.

I looked up this latest quote it appears to come from his book. I guess I'm reading the piece differently to you because I see it as a thinly veiled attack (again) on nutritionists. I also find the implication that olive oil consumers look down on crisp eaters to the point of thinking that they deserve to die young, hugely offensive.

Fair enough if you don't think that Goldacre has an agenda. Why then do you think he attacks CAM and nutritionists in the way he does? Why do you think he repeatedly spreads misinformation about MMR and vaccine damage?

You're welcome thumbwitch. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

Very shocking. I remember way, way back on a Radio 4 discussion about the MMR controversy, an MMR defender came on to say that children needed this shot because it was known that if they contract live measles and mumps within a year of each other the risk of autism increased.

And that was given as a reason for deliberately delivering the vaccines at the same time.

Madness.

I can't read BG for the same reason .. I've looked in a couple of times but it makes me shudder. I suppose one should examine it more to find the fault with what he says and knock the fallacies he promotes but I find it unreadable.

I think that, to some extent, his beef with nutritionists started with the McKeith woman. Now, she made a few fundamental errors in her own publicity, not least with giving herself a bit of a false title, and by having such a public profile, she was fair game. Patrick Holford is a self-confessed guru who has a worrying tendency to claim 100% guaranteed success for some things - he too is probably fair game.

BUT - Gillian McKeith brought some very important things to the public consciousness, not least that your poo can tell you things about your health (something which Catherine Collins, spokesperson for the BDA, publicly derided - interesting, as it is a useful tool, frequently used in hospitals to investigate faecal specimens for various indicators of disease!)

Patrick Holford might be an oleaginous self-spun guru but he also has done many people some good, either through his books or through the college he set up. It might not be "provable" in terms of Cartesian principles but if they felt/got better then that surely is a good thing!

Now, the one thing I cannot understand is the position taken by some doctors, and even some dietitians - that changing your diet cannot help prevent diseases and improve your health (outside of a very narrow range of known diet-influenced diseases, such as obesity and CVD). It surely makes sense to the meanest intellect that if you give a system low-grade or the wrong fuel, it is not going to function as well as if you give it premium grade, correct fuel!

What seriously gets my goat though, is that because of these misguided self-publicists, he and others of his ilk have discarded complementary nutrition (i.e. not dietetics)in its entirety as quackery. Stupid, narrowminded and really quite backward.

I just can't get past the way he misrepresents Dr Wakefield as a lone, anti-vaccine, greedy, nonconsequential maverick who is to be pitied when he is not being damned.

And the fact that every time he mentions Wakefield et al's Lancet paper he gets the entire contents of the paper completely wrong. I notice he never refers to the title of the paper which is "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children". It is nothing to do with detecting measles virus in children as Goldacre constantly falsely claims.

Either he hasn't actually read the report he is so keen to scoff at or he is doing this deliberately. In either case it is just inexcusable for a science writer, particularly one with a medical background.

Considering his disgusting attitude towards victims of vaccine damage I'm guessing he is doing it deliberately and with intent. Which, for me, begs the question what is his motive?

Have just re-read Blame Everyone Except Those Responsible and can't believe the gall of the man.

Basically he is saying;

Poor pharma having this unjustified bad name for influencing government and research organisations, poor pharma for having a bad name for bent study results when they are no worse than anyone else in this regard. Poor pharma for having to pay for research that leads to highly lucrative products for them to market. Poor pharma for having a reputation for being hugely powerful whilst it has been a victim of the public all along.

How disgraceful that the tax payer on the street has allowed this situation to come about. How terrible that the average fella thinks medicine should be about helping people when we all know that it is a capitalist (and therefore profit motivated) venture.

Yes Ben, that is a very clever piece of spin. Shame it just happens to be a load of bollocks. Still, at least he is consistent in his opinion pieces I suppose.

OK, policywonk I've also re-read the second piece from his book too. (I've never read so much of this man's condescending drivel in one day!).

Actually I think you could be right he is possibly not a pharma spin man but a government one. I suspect the remit is about the same.

He has a very similar style to the French president Sarkozy. If you are not careful you end up nodding away like a nodding dog and you hardly notice the spin, glossing over of certain facts whilst leaving out others, oversimplification and that it is all just one man's overinflated opinion (or so we are told).

if you want a really good read, I recommend this book by Richard Milton, called Alternative Science. I particularly like some of the early examples of how unpopular or innovative discoveries/scenarios are dealt with in the press and by government, including the Wright brothers' flying machine (impossible, a con, faked pictures etc.; and Edison's electric light bulb - impossible, taking us backward etc.).

There is a lovely circular argument regarding scientific research into hypnosis:
a conversation that took place between a Professor of Psychology at a British University and a post-graduate student:

Student: There seems to be a need for good quality research in the field of hypnosis
Prof: I would never allow it in my department
Student: Why not?
Prof: Because hypnosis is not a respectable field of research
Student: Why not?
Prof: Because it has no serious published literature
Student: Why is there no literature?
Prof: Because nobody has done the research
Student: Why has nobody done the research?
Prof: Because it?s not a respectable field of research.

Sound familiar?

The book might be nearly 15 years old now but I am still convinced it should be compulsory reading for anyone who does any form of science, at any level.

Oh I like that. It goes with.

Andrew Wakefield is wrong.
Why is he wrong?
He must be wrong because he's a maverick.
What makes him a maverick?
The fact that he's wrong of course.

Ba-doom

s'good, isn't it? The whole book is brilliant - I found it about 5 years ago and I read through it as fast as any novel (am a fast reader of those, too). I even contacted the author to see if he was planning an update! (sadly not, at the time)

I'll look for it.. have contributed to Patrick Holford's margins myself! I like him despite his way. And I like his success as a continuing poke in the eye for those he annoys.

Ooh I like this circular argument thing. Here's another one.

MMR does not cause autism.
How do you know?
Because autism is not a reportable side effect of MMR.
I'd like to report a case of autism causing MMR.
Sorry love you can't do that, it's not on the list of reportable events.
Why not?
Because nobody has ever reported MMR causing autism.

Except it would appear from the manufacturer's own information that MMRII can cause mental retardation.

Quote;
"In children who have not had measles but have received measles vaccine there have been rare reports of gradual mental deterioration, fits and sudden jerking of a single muscle or group of muscles. It is thought that this occurs once in one million vaccine doses given. This compares with 6 to 22 cases per million cases of measles (that is, measles has a higher risk of causing these symptoms than the measles vaccine)."

From this.

Yes but it says "gradual mental retardation" there not "autism" so you still can't report your case.
OK then, can I report a case of 'gradual mental retardation' then?
No you can't, your child has autism.
Now piss off I've got important work to do writing propaganda important information about increases in measles cases.

I like this one

Gp - your child does not have autism because he did not have it at his previous development checks
me - but it looks like autism NOW - could it be the MMR?
Gp - no because the MMR does not cause autism
Me -then how can he have autism?
Gp - goes away
comes back
GP - he has regressive autism
me - what does that mean?
GP - it means he wasn't but now he is
me - but it was when he had the MMR that he became autistic so why can't that be connected ?
GP - it can't because regressive autism is a syndrome
Me - since when ?
Gp - since I found it
me - but what is it?
GP - it is children who were fine but then got severe ASD (co-incidentaly around the time of their MMR but was in no way connected)
me- you're making that up!
GP - no i'm not.
Gp - go away

BTW despite being flippant earlier I am well aware that autism and mental retardation are not the same condition. I am also aware that many ASD people have average and high IQs and do not fit the criteria of mental retardation. I'm also aware that the two conditions can be misdiagnosed for one another.

I would very much like to know however exactly what is meant by 'gradual mental retardation' in the context of the above MMR information and why that specific term was chosen.

As you were. Having fun with circular arguments.