Tomfoolery Blog

Archive for the ‘mmr’ Category

After bugging people for long enough, some poor soul has given in and let me on a podcast! Gavin Schofield, Alex Dennerly and Dr Janis Bennion of the Greater Manchester Skeptics host the “Just Skeptics” podcast, where they discuss the skeptical issues of the day. In this episode, we discuss the state of homeopathy in the UK, skeptical issues in India, and my soap box segment is on the argument from authority.

Big props to Gavin for cutting out most of my “ummms” and “errrs”!

If you’ve got any comments on the show, please leave them on the Just Skeptics website, the GM Skeptics website, or on this very blogpost.

The show can be listened to here, and is available on iTunes. Just search for “Just Skeptics”.

By the way, if any Adam and Joe fans recognize my sign off, you know what to do!

Sometimes Facebook can provide some beautifully unintentional statements. Here is disgraced Andrew Wakefield showing what he really thinks about “callous disregard”:

Check this antivax link out:

http://www.feedyourself.co.uk/wakefield.html

Today, justice was finally done. After two and a half years, the GMC has struck Andrew Wakefield off the medical register. You can read the decision (free from tabloid fudging) here.

Many are deliriously happy about this decision, but why? I believe this case shows a doctor drunk on power and greed, and the further you dig the uglier it gets.

Let’s be clear on this: Wakefield has not been punished just for suggesting a link between MMR and autism. His crimes are numerous:

1. He was paid money from the Legal Aid Board (taxpayers money) to investigate a link between MMR and autism. He did not declare this conflict of interest to the Lancet when he wrote the 1998 paper.
2. He patented a measles vaccine (referred to as Transfer Factor), which could only succeed if MMR was deemed to be dangerous. Again, he did not declare this to the Lancet. If that wasn’t bad enough, the father of one of the children in the Lancet study was the Managing Director of the company that made Transfer Factor.
3. He infamously paid children for blood samples at a birthday party, and joked about it in a presentation. This is the origin of the phrase ‘callous disregard’, a phrase used by the GMC to describe Wakefield’s attitude to the pain and sufering he caused to the children at the party.
4. He published an extremely shoddy piece of research (the 1998 Lancet paper) knowing full well it would cause panic about the MMR vaccine.
5. Worst of all, he conducted invasive procedures on vulnerable children without the consent of an ethics committee. This is by far the most serious charge, and (I hate to invoke Godwin’s law here) puts him on a par with the doctors who experimented on children in Nazi concentration camps. The procedures included colonoscopies (inserting a camera into the rectum, which caused bowel perforations in one of the children), barium meals (exposing the children to unnecessary levels of radiation) and lumbar punctures (inserting a long needle into a patients spine to collect cerebrospinal fluid).

His striking off will come as no surprise, as he hasn’t practiced in the UK for many years. So, what will Wakefield do next? His only supporters are the lunatics in the antivax community, and sadly they have quite a lot of money. I hate to promote it, but he has written a book about the whole affair. It’s called “Callous Disregard”, and features a forward by everyone’s favourite Playboy playmate and all-round loudmouth Jenny McCarthy.

Wakefield’s chances of getting a job in a respectable medical establishment are practically zero, and his shot reputation has had an unexpected benefit for anyone who wants to vent their spleen: you can say pretty much anything about him. He tried to sue Brian Deer, the journalist who exposed him, before later admitting defeat and paying Deer compensation. Future articles on him should be interesting.

In conclusion, I’m hoping his appeal is short-lived, and this sorry episode is finally put to bed. Sadly, I don’t think we’ve heard the last of him.

Twat

The Internet is full of sites which support the myth of the link between MMR and autism. One such site is ageofautism.com. As an example, I thought I’d bring up this article, where the authors try and make out that Wakefield is the victim of a witch-hunt. As you might expect, they bring up no facts to support their case, and completely miss the point of Wakefield’s “paper”. If you like delicious waffle, this site is for you!

http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/03/the-wakefield-inquisition-case-series-insanity.html

Andrew Wakefield is getting his comeuppance, big time. He’s been shot down by the GMC, had not one, but two papers withdrawn from journals, and now, he has left the Thoughtful House Centre for Children, the very clinic that he set up.

So where does this leave Wakefield? On the face of it, it would appear that he no longer has a voice. But just how low will he stoop? He’s already been shown to bribe children at birthday parties, as well as perform unnecessary colonoscopies and lumber punctures. To be honest I really wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up at naturalnews.com.

One quote from the Times really riled me:

My work will continue at Thoughtful House until we get a definitive answer into whether vaccines can cause autism.

This is so unscientific it hurts. He’s starting with a conclusion and trying to prove it, which is turning the scientific method on its head. And anyway, all the peer-reviewed evidence shows that vaccines (in particular the MMR vaccine) do NOT cause autism. Funny how Wakefield never mentions any of that.

Scum.

In case you’ve been living under a rock the size of Hartlepool, Andrew Wakefield is the doctor who started the MMR-autism scare. He has since been held up in front of the GMC on charges of acting unethically, and his 1998 Lancet paper withdrawn.

More recently, he and his colleges published a study into the effects of a thiomersal-containing Hepatitis B vaccine on macaque monkeys. Their findings were published in the journal NeuroToxicology, and they suggested that the vaccines resulted in impaired neurological development.

Well guess what? It’s been withdrawn from the journal! As of yet I don’t know why, but I will keep you updated as soon as I find out!

As I’m sure you’re aware, the supposed ‘link’ between autism and the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine has received much press attention in recent weeks. The doctor responsible for the mess, Andrew Wakefield, has finally been disciplined by the GMC, and the Lancet has retracted his controversial 1998 paper.

However,the ‘controversy’ refuses to go away. I thought I’d share with you a link that has been going around the antivax community. A link with the startling title ‘Scientific Link to Autism Identified’:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/scientific-link-to-autism-identified-70354482.html

Now, if you are familiar with the process of peer review, I don’t need to tell you that this link should set alarm bells the size of Hampshire ringing. As you might expect, this links to a PR company. Scientists do not go to PR agencies with their latest research, they publish in journals.

Anyway, delve into the article and you will find that the so-called link is based on the predictions of a mathematical model. That’s not so bad, models are certainly useful (if I do say so myself). However, is this model available? No.Is it possible to work out why the model predicts what it does? Absolutely not.

The model was developed by the The Center for Modeling Optimal Outcomes. They sound like a wealth of potential quackery, so I’ll keep you updated in future posts.

I’ll leave you with this: if an antivaxer ever points you to this, ask them how it demonstrates a link between autism and MMR. You will be met with a stunned silence.