Andrew Wakefield Struck off

[ShadeofViolet]

here

Poledra, that is exactly where the problem lies.

"clinically indicated"

it comes down to opinion on that one.

on one side you have people who saythey wer enot clinically indicated.

on the other, you have desperate parents and patients in unbearable pain. and Wakefield, who carried put the tests, and lo and behold found a new form of bowel disease.

not clinically indicated? who the fuck said so?

doctors who preferred t look the other way, rahter than treat their patients.

somehting which stil happens today. and sadly all the more so, becasue they have now been goven licenceto ignore "odd" presentations. they are now vindicated in not looking any further for answers.

I'm in the FUCKING CHARADE camp

Good

whenm someone can link to a study which actually explores the WAkefiled hypothesis (that is all it was, and all he ever said it was) which actually examines the right sub-group of ASD children, which finds his hypothesis wrong, then I'll accept it.

oh, that's right. No-one can. because that research hasn't been done.

Why not?

why do govs/companies keep throwing money at studies whichprove somehting that no-one ever challenged in the first place?

why not do the research that would put this to bed for once nd all?

I thought they would. Isn't he out in the US now selling food supplements to the parents of children with autism?

His original research was flawed. He should not have announced his findings when he did -the research was not thorough enough, the numbers of subjects too small, no control group... badly carried out on so many levels. I read it at the time (I was studying psychology at the time and really enjoyed reading research papers) and was gobsmacked that he actually went public with his concerns. The problem with research and data is that you can sometimes argue both sides of an argument at the same time. And he was being paid by lawyers for his research to prove his theory. You should never start research with your conclusion - start with your suspicions by all means, but never with your answer.

He has been punished, not for his theory but for the way he went about publicising it. I thought he came across as arrogant and unrepentent too.

I agree that money should be put towards research and education, not lawyers fees.

Yes, Silverfrog, and where there is a lack of clarity about the need for clinical tests, we need research to work out if it is clinically indicated. And this research must be approved by an independent Ethics Committee. Which Dr. Wakefield did recognise as he made an application to the local Ethics Committee to perform that research. However, he did not wait for the Ethics Committee to approve his research, and that is unethical.

the key sentence in your last post Leonie is 'according to Mercola' - a man who BusinessWeek compared to 'a snake-oil salesman'.

jeananddolly - linkin got a Brian Deer article doesn't prove anyhitng. The man is incapable of writing anyhitng even close to the truth where Wakefield is concerned. He seems to get kicks out of seeign just howmany lies he can publish and get people to believe...

Deer is a whacko but Mercola isn't?

What makes people credible, Leonie? Their methods or that you agree with them?

"Why do people feel so pleased that he's been struck off? Do they feel harmed by him, or what he did?"

The widespread anguish and panic caused by his unethical research and by not stating by whom he was employed meant that thousands of chidren have gone unimmunised against serious disease. Children have since died as a result. That alone makes me very angry.

Andrew Wakefield seems to have been dishonest several times. How is he still credible in your eyes?

yes people feel pleased, he has harmed lots of children. There were just 56 measles cases in 1998, against 1348 in 2008. Several children have died as a result of his behaviour.

There's a nice summary here: tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html

Agree with wahwahwah.

Would also like all the 'science' journalists with no formal scientific qualifications to be struck off/ prevented from writing in newspapers/magazines etc as well as forbidden from selling their quack remedies.

Google seems to know about Mercola - autocomplete suggestions for Mercola:

'Joseph Mercola fraud'
'Joseph Mercola scam'
'Joseph Mercola quack'

Leonie is the NHS also a 'corrupt buddy buddies only club'? And Colombia University, Harvard Medical School and the US Centre for Disease Control? Of COURSE they all are. Because you say so. I recommend you read it.

Obviously though, you will believe what you believe in the face of all available scientific evidence because it suits you.

I'm always amazed by conspiracy theory believers - they think they're so darn important that government agencies spend significant amounts of time and more deliberately trying to dupe them.

Low MMR uptake in my area in the aftermath of Wakefield's 'research' was DIRECTLY responsible for my DD getting measles at 10mo - a disease which hospitalises 1 in 10 children who catch it. Thanks.

Ben Goldacre is a practising doctor and I'd put money on him having much much more medical training and experience than anyone on this thread: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Goldacre

So yes, if you don't mind, I'll listen to his opinion over that of Leonie and dittany