If my post today is a bit shorter on the usual Respectfully and not-so-Respectfully Insolent verbiage that you've come to know and love (or hate), I hope you'll forgive me. It's hard not to sit back, rest a bit, and enjoy the spectacle of Andrew Wakefield being pilloried in the press in the wake of the BMJ's article documenting his scientific misconduct in gory detail. He's gotten away far too long with trying to split the difference when credulous journalists "tell both sides of the story" so that to those not knowledgeable about his scientific fraud and incompetence it seems as though there really are two sides to the story of whether or not the MMR vaccine causes autism. I realize that schadenfreude is generally considered a less than honorable emotion, but, you know what? Sometimes it's not only justified, but necessary.
This is one of those times.
Of course, we all knew that the counterattack was coming. Even though the press was in general far better than it usually is about stories like this, it still couldn't resist letting some of Wakefield's defenders make fools of themselves, starting with Wakefield himself. Now, I realize that it would be impossible for any self-respecting journalist worth his salt to ignore Andrew Wakefield after the BMJ published a bombshell story like this, but a guy can hope, can't he? Worse, as Media Spy points out, even though it gave Wakefield a hard time, CNN still framed the story in the same "he says, she says" way that gives aid and comfort to pseudoscience. Even so, I will say that, in spite of the irritating "tell both sides" framing of the story by CNN, Anderson Cooper did as good a job as I've ever seen trying to pin down the slick and slimy Andrew Wakefield, who beamed in via Skype from the anti-vaccine conference he is speaking at in Jamaica:
First, it is gratifying to note that Anderson Cooper would have none of Wakefield's dissembling. But, first, we're treated to a "greatest" hits of Wakefield's favorite whines. For example, Wakefield plays the persecution card, coupled with the conspiracy card, with just a dash of the lone nut card (as he tries to paint investigative journalist Brian Deer as an obsessed lunatic out to get him), as this transcript shows:
ANDREW WAKEFIELD, AUTHORED RETRACTED AUTISM STUDY: Well, you know, I have had to put up with this man's false allegations for many, many years. I have written a book. And in that book...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: But this is not just one man. This is -- this is published in "The British Medical Journal."
(CROSSTALK)
WAKEFIELD: No. And -- and I have not as yet had a chance to read that, but I have read his multiple allegations on many occasions.
He is a hit man. He's been brought in to take me down because they are very, very concerned about the adverse reactions to vaccines that are occurring in children.
COOPER: Wait a minute, sir. Let me just stop you right there.
This was an excellent move on Cooper's part. He didn't let Wakefield get on a roll with his usual schtick. When Wakefield alleged a conspiracy, Cooper first called him out for referring to Brian Deer as a "hit man," and then asked Wakefield who he thinks is paying Deer to "bring him down." Wakefield then goes into a classic pharma shill gambit:
WAKEFIELD: And he's -- you know, who brought this man in? Who is paying this man? I don't know. But I do know for sure that he's not a journalist like you are. And...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Well, he -- he's actually signed a document guaranteeing that he has no financial interest in any of this, or no financial connections to anyone who has an interest in this.
(CROSSTALK)
WAKEFIELD: Well, that's interesting you should say that, because he was supported in his investigation by the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries, which is funded directly and exclusively by the pharmaceutical industry. So...
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: According to him, he's received no funding from -- from any parties that have interests in this over the last three years.
But let's just -- let's talk about some of the specifics that he is claiming. You're basically saying this is a -- some sort of conspiracy against you. Is that -- is that your argument?
WAKEFIELD: Conspiracy is your word.
What this is, is a ruthless, pragmatic attempt to crush any investigation into valid vaccine safety concerns, not just my concerns. I'm here at a meeting of experts on vaccines from around the world who are very -- extremely concerned about the safety of vaccines and the damage that they believe and I believe is being done to children.
So let me get this straight. According to Wakefield, this shadowy cabal of--well, he doesn't exactly know who but he knows they're evil and he knows they're ruthlessly trying to harm children by preventing his brave maverick investigation into finding The One True Cause of Autism That is Vaccines--is trying to take him down because he's apparently some sort of threat to their nefarious plans to make children autistic. Meanwhile, Wakefield's down in Jamaica, chilling and playing to his base, so to speak, being feted by the anti-vaccine movement and held up as an "expert" and a hero. Let's take a look a this conference for a moment. The conference has the delightfully Orwellian name of Vaccine Safety: Evaluating the Science. Its purpose is described thusly:
The "Vaccine Safety: Evaluating the Science" Conference has been organized to address concerns raised by the scientific community about the scientific evidence, policy, law and ethics of vaccination. Fears of global pandemics have been used by the World Health Organization and governments around the world to push for increasingly aggressive vaccination programs. While questions about vaccine safety continue to be raised, concerns have largely been downplayed by governments, regulatory agencies, and the pharmaceutical industry. Contrary to a widespread belief that vaccine safety is completely and unequivocally established, the work of a number of scientists suggests that the opposite might be true.
The conference will bring together leading scientists whose research has raised concerns about aspects of vaccine safety. Several well-established proponents of mass vaccination campaigns have also been invited to present their views and evidence. The participants will include basic and clinical researchers who have studied a range of issues from the toxic potential of various vaccine ingredients to the expression of human diseases. The overall goal of the meeting is to provide a critical analysis of the existing data on vaccine safety and an evaluation of what further research is needed in the future. The conference conclusions can be expected to have a profound impact on the development of health policies concerning vaccines and will serve to provide a science-based overview for the general public.
Uh-oh. The "toxic potential of various vaccine ingredients"? Oh, no! It's the toxin gambit! I do, however, somehow doubt that the conference conclusions will have any influence whatsoever on public health officials. Nor should they. Look at the list of speakers participating in the conference, if you don't believe me; they're basically as bad as the conference from more than a year ago hosted by Barbara Loe Fisher's National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), as documented elsewhere. Come to think of it, it's no surprise that BLF is one of the sponsors of this conference as well. As for the speakers, there are Andrew Wakefield, Russell Blaylock (who is as loony as they come), Raymond Obomsawin (whose outright misrepresentation of data is legend) Richard Deth, Barbara Loe Fisher, and other luminaries in the anti-vaccine movement. What, no Dr. Jay Gordon? He must not have been available for a trip to Jamaica in January!
The rest of Wakefield's defense boils down to, in essence, "Buy my book!" and "Brian Deer is a big poopy pants!" He also repeated the same tired claim that his work has been replicated. It hasn't. I have to give major props to Anderson Cooper for coming up with the best retort I've heard to Wakefield's nonsense:
But, sir, if you're lying, then your book is also a lie. If your study is a lie, your book is a lie.
Personally I would have repeated the old joke, with Wakefield as its punchline. How do you know when Andrew Wakefield is lying? His lips are moving and sound is coming out of his mouth, which is pretty much what Brian Deer said in this interview, along with pointing out how Wakefield was in it largely for the money:
It is indeed ludicrous how fast Wakefield is at throwing around false charges against his enemies that they are somehow in the pocket of big pharma when Wakefield was going after money from the very beginning, money from trial lawyers suing vaccine manufacturers, money from a patent for a vaccine designed to compete with the MMR, money from pretty much everything.
Perhaps the silliest attempts to downplay Dr. Wakefield's perfidy came from our old "friend," Dr. Jay Gordon, who has been Twittering away on his Twitter account, @JayGordonMDFAAP. Here's a sampling from Dr. Jay's Tweets from the last day or so:
- I changed the way I vaccinate kids in 1980. I saw unusual behavior after the usual combinations. Wakefield changed nothing for me. Relax.
- I still give shots every day. Just can't stand the CDC schedule and stopped using it in 1980. (Wakefield was still in med school back then.)
- Focus on Wakefield is a distraction. So many possible toxins in kids' lives: flame retardants, plastics and more.Vaccines play a role though
So, basically, we have more data-free, evidence-free, confirmation bias-driven nonsense spread by Dr. Jay to his 7,000 or so followers. Once again, he repeats his belief that vaccines play a role in autism. Once again, he promotes his individual clinical experience as having more weight than science, epidemiology, and clinical trials. Once again, he demonstrates the arrogance of ignorance. Once again, I expect him to show up in the comments again, plaintively whining that Orac is mean and just plain being too hard on poor, poor, pitiful Jay, who likened Deer and BMJ going after Wakefield to, well, here's the Tweet:
BMJ and Deer slamming Lancet and Wakefield is like GM and Ford coming after Toyota and Volvo: Maybe some truth but read skeptically.
In other words, Dr. Jay is completely buying into Wakefield's lies about the criticisms directed at him, namely that it's all about money and trying to suppress Wakefield as a threat to vaccine manufacturer's profits. For shame, Dr. Jay! For shame!
In particular, for shame for not even being able to maintain even some degree of logical consistency:
Don't get me wrong, the Lancet's irresponsibility in publishing the article was tragic. Wakefield has good ideas but study was inconclusive
Huh? If Wakefield had "good ideas" but his study was only "inconclusive," then why was The Lancet's irresponsibility in publishing the article "tragic"? Dr. Jay can't even make sense in his pseudoscientific arguments! Even worse, he's mischaracterizing the situation. Wakefield's study was not just "inconclusive," it was fraudulent. Dr. Jay also totally misunderstands the nature of peer review, as he demonstrated in the comments of my post:
The Lancet" should not have published a study drawing conclusions from such a small sample size. Medical authors, as we all know, need guidance from editors and from peers. Dr. Wakefield did not get that guidance.
Let me just explain the purpose of peer review from Dr. Jay. Dr. Jay is partially correct, as far as it goes, when he appears to concede that Wakefield's article should never have been published in The Lancet, given that, even if it hadn't been fraudulent, small case studies such as Wakefield's usually are not published in such high ranking, high impact journals. They are usually published in middle to lower tier journals, the proper place for them. Be that as it may, it is not the job of peer reviewers to "give guidance" to medical authors. It is the job of peer reviewers to criticize manuscripts and tell the authors if they pass scientific muster and report results sufficiently compelling and scientifically or medically interesting to be published in their journal. Arguably, in this The Lancet's peer reviewers failed utterly. Even so, Wakefield didn't need guidance from editors and peers. He needed someone to discover his fraud and stop him before he published his fraudulent results. Either that, or he needed someone to convince him that going to the press to promote his view that vaccines cause a syndrome of regressive autism with enterocolitis was irresponsible in the extreme. The reason Wakefield has managed to publish as much as he has and because peer review failed in his case is because the scientific enterprise is largely built on trust. As a consequence, peer review is notoriously awful at detecting outright fraud and fabricated results. When it does, usually it is because of a particularly egregious bit of fabricated results that a sharp-eyed reviewer picks up, such as a doctored autoradiograph. Wakefield's authors didn't doubt him because they trusted him. As a result, the reputations of some of his collaborators were seriously damaged. Dr. Jay really needs to learn the difference between incompetent science and outright fraud.
One interesting aspect of the defense of Andrew Wakefield is who isn't circling the wagon around him. Sure, the usual suspects are there: J.B. Handley, Andrew Wakefield himself, Dr. Jay Gordon, the National Autism Association, John Stone, and a variety of other anti-vaccine activists. Notice, however, who is not defending Andrew Wakefield this time. Believe it or not, Jenny McCarthy refused to be interviewed regarding the latest about Andrew Wakefield. One wonders if she's finally figured out that her previous defenses of him, such as the one she and her then-boyfriend Jim Carrey published last year, when the GMC ruled that Wakefield committed scientific fraud, is a serious liability.
Or not. I just noticed on her Twitter feed that Jenny McCarthy has posted a link to a J.B. Handley's interview, in which he defended Andrew Wakefield (deconstructed yesterday). And so it goes.
So it also goes that I ended up writing one of my usual logorrheic epics, even though I hadn't planned on it as I sat down with my laptop to write. I guess scientific fraud that endangers children has that effect on me.
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I actually thought Anderson Cooper managed a brief crowning moment of awesome when he reminded Wakefield that the purpose of the interview wasn't to sell that quack's book.
I love how the anti-vax crowd cries CONFLICT OF INTEREST every chance they get, yet are so verrrry very silent about wakefield's.
and seriously, why the fuck does anyone care what jay gordon thinks. He's just riding every coattail he can find, because $DEITY knows, he's got no talents worth marketing of his own. Jay's a remora with a predilection for retarded sharks.
Tracey Spicer on 2UE here in Australia utterly demolished the anti-vax Meryl Dorey today: http://www.2ue.com.au/blogs/2ue-blog/to-vaccinate-or-not/20110107-19i9a…
Awesome.
Damn, Anthony just beat me to it. Have a listen, Orac, it's awesome!
Mr. Baxtor, I listened to Tracer Spicer's conversation with Dorey. I have only one thing to say:
You Aussies rock!
I love seeing Andrew Wakefield go down, however something in you're own article bothered me:
"Even though the press was in general far better than it usually is about stories like this, it still couldn't resist letting some of Wakefield's defenders make fools of themselves, starting with Wakefield himself. Now, I realize that it would be impossible for any self-respecting journalist worth his salt to ignore Andrew Wakefield after the BMJ published a bombshell story like this, but a guy can hope, can't he?"
and
"Worse, as Media Spy points out, even though it gave Wakefield a hard time, CNN still framed the story in the same "he says, she says" way that gives aid and comfort to pseudoscience."
In it you are basically saying that you think this is another case of 'telling both sides used wrong', something you've reported on before. I have to disagree with you. In a story about a link between autism and vaccines you would be right: you would only need to consult real experts to debunk a story like that. This is, however, not a story about vaccines. It's a story about a fraud (Wakefield) and the people he duped (the modern anti-vaccine movement).
If you accuse/involve someone in an journalistic report you should give him/her the chance to respond, no matter how stupid/evil that person is. This story involves Andrew Wakefield and parents of autistic children that stopped vaccinating their children. Should they grant Wakefield an interview with harsh questions like on CNN? Yes, they should. The same goes for his followers. But all parties involved (not just Wakefield) should get the chance to tell 'their side' of this story.
I got a lot of joy and satisfaction out of watching those two (very good) interviews. I am hopeful the momentum of this story keeps building, and that parents take this valuable chance to educate themselves. This story could be the tipping point for parents who were considering not vaccinating their children, to reconsider where those fears about autism came from, since I know (from those I've spoken to) that many have no idea where the idea originated.
As a mum of an autistic 5 year old, who has the vaccinations due soon for my 1 year old, I too find it very reassuring. I know the science, I know there is no proven link, but your emotional reaction as a parent can still niggle at you with "what ifs", especially when you already have one child with autism. We were always going to vaccinate our youngest son, but the latest revelations make that decision a much less anxious one.
Richard Deth at an anti vaxxer conference?
Orac, I know how you hate grammar/typo's being pointed out but, shouldn't you have said "Dr. Jay Gordon, who has been Twitting away"? ;)
I think Jay Gordon has a point here - after all, if the editors and peers never told Snakefield that fabricating data was wrong. I'm sure that if he had been aware that making shit up is frowned on in scientific circles he would not have done it.
There is definitely a conspiracy, but I donât think that it is a human conspiracy. I donât believe there is a smoke filled room where a group of men get together and decide to vaccinate the population. I believe that it is at a much higher level. I believe that it is a Satanic conspiracy. The reason these different people come to the same conclusion is not because they all met together; it is because they all work for the devil. He is their leader and they donât even know it.
It keeps getting better
Somebody on Pharangula noticed that "the solicitor who financed Andrew Wakefield, Richard Barr, appears to be a director of the Society of Homeopaths".
His profile is second from last
http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-the-society/Bod.aspx
I assume that David Icke, King of Bullshit will come to Wakefield's defense.
augustine, if that is you and not an imposter, will you kindly faff off to pharyngula? your talents are ... wasted here.
@2 I liked the first comment on Merly Dorey
Aside from the general entertainment value of listening to the rising hysteria level in Dorey's voice, the Spicer interview strikes me as being not particularly far removed from an episode of the Morton Downey, Jr., show.
Stick it ti him, brother!!
Oh lovely.
Autism âFraudâ Sets Research Sights on Minnesotaâs Somali Community
"...Just last month [Wakefield] was in the Twin Cities recruiting Somali parents for a research study, even though he no longer has a medical license. Dr. Wakefield was careful to say he just wants to help finance that study.
Wakefield spoke to a room of anxious Somali parents his last time in town, spreading his message that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is linked to autism."
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/autism-fraud-wakefield-mn-somal…
Regarding the Tracey Spicer interview of Meryl Dorey:
If people think that was a good interview, I'd hate to see a bad one. But, before slamming her for jumping on a dead horse, I would like to know the history of her coverage of vaccines and the anti-vaccination movement. If she has not been involved when the issue was unpopular, then she deserves no kudos for this unprofessional performance.
But I'll retract my opinion if someone can inform me otherwise regarding her previous reporting on vaccination.
You know, someone who says this:
should know better than to say things like this:
or this:
especially not after admitting:
I strongly recommend listening to this Australian radio interviewer deal with Meryl Dory, the Australian antivaxxer. She shuts her down and has a fully justifiable rant.
I see I was beaten to it.
@BillyJoe 16
The main point of the Spicer interview of Meryl Dorey for those of us here in Australia was that, before the investigations by authorities in response to complaints by concerned citizens that lead to a public warning being issued by the NSW HCCC and the revocation of the AVN's Charitable Fundraising Authority by the NSW OLGR, Ms Dorey enjoyed a very credible profile and was never taken to task in the interests of false 'balance'.
What happened today with Ms Spicer would not have happened 12 months ago during a mainstream media interview of any sort involving Meryl Dorey, who would have been allowed to prattle on and promulgate all her pseudoscience, conflated statistics, misinformation and fearmongering unchallenged.
The fact that the mainstream commercial media (and the radio station that Ms Spicer works for is very popular/respected and is in the talk-back radio genre), regardless of any prior involvement or reporting on vaccination are now pre-researching and taking Ms Dorey to task on her misinformation represents the very loss of credibility that is affecting Ms Dorey now as she and her organisation are recognised for what they are - anti-vaccination and a danger to public health.
The interview of Meryl Dorey was actually a follow-up to Ms Spicer's reporting the day before of the BMJ Wakefield fraud article, and she quite correctly called out Ms Dorey, who promotes herself as a 'vaccine expert' and her organisation as Australia's vaccine watchdog, on her current continued support of Wakefield, imo, without letting Ms Dorey change the subject, get in plugs for her website, or any other effort not to answer Ms Spicer's questions or spout her misinformation. The appropriateness of the way Ms Spicer conducted the interview is, of course, a matter of opinion, and I'm afraid I have a differing opinion to yours.
@Anonymous
Perhaps someone should inform the Office of Human Research Protection, not to mention that his fraud and ethical misconduct should be disclosed in any communications with any potential subjects.
I'm glad to see the forces of science and reason win out over dangerous ignorance yet again. Now if only CNN could report science properly, we'd be ahead a long way.
While I found Anderson Cooper's interview with Wakefield (and discussions afterward with Sanjay Gupta and Seth Mnookin) to overall be excellent, I thought he did have one line that would leave room for the conspiracy theorists to foam at the mouth.
After saying:
"(Deer)'s actually signed a document guaranteeing that he has no financial interest in any of this, or no financial connections to anyone who has an interest in this."
Cooper then says:
"According to him, he's received no funding from -- from any parties that have interests in this over the last three years."
Is this supposed to mean that Deer might have gotten funding from "any parties that have interests in this" more than three years ago? News to me.
Hemorrhaging over this by the antivaxers would be rich, given Wakefield's funding sources and efforts to patent a competing vaccine (not to mention revelations of his sloppy and fraudulent work in comparison to Deer's rigorous and accurate reporting), but clarification of the "over the last three years" comment would be appreciated.
Apparently, Dr. Jay was anti-vaccine before there was any rise in the administrative prevalence of autism. I'm trying to think if this is at odds with some of his other statements.
I really hope that is the real augustine. It's nice when crazy makes itself obvious.
Orac:
You missed an important point. Today's date. Under the Julian Calendar followed by Orthodox Christian churches, today is Christmas.
Enjoying your new toy?
Yesterday, when the story broke, under the Gregorian Calendar followed by Roman Christian churches, was epiphany.
Somehow, epiphany seems an appropriate adjective, too.
More debunking of Wakefield's fraud! May the joyous celebrations last all weekend.
@mikerattlesnake @25
On the internet, what looks like insanity is often actually being twelve.
@Dangerous Bacon: ""According to him, he's received no funding from -- from any parties that have interests in this over the last three years."
Is this supposed to mean that Deer might have gotten funding from "any parties that have interests in this" more than three years ago? News to me."
I think this is in reference to the fact that, back several years ago, Wakefield tried to sue Brian Deer but withdrew from the suit before it want to court and had to pay court costs (or, actually, the Medical Society paid Deer's legal expenses).
Someone took a screen cap of the moment Andy holds up his book, and, much to my surprise, it's not the "Callous Disregard" book... You'll be shocked and chuckled to see what book it actually was:
http://tinypic.com/r/sp97k4/7
Maybe if Anderson Cooper would have let him hold up the book completely, we could have have found out Andy's truth.
The timing of the BMJ article couldn't be worse (or more perfect, depending on your point of view) for the Jamaica conference. Imagine your headliner scheduled to speak the day after he is exposed as a fraud.
I'm personally very satisfied as the organizers of this BS Fest are faculty members of my alma mater. I don't have the expertise to evaluate Chris Shaw's experimental work supposedly demonstrating the neurotoxic effects of aluminum adjuvants, but his extra-scientific activities make me very skeptical.
T. Bruce McNeely, There have been some discussions here about Shaw's and Petrik's very flawed work on mice and aluminium. If you can't find them, I will try and dig them up. I have also taken down Petrik's study (Shaw was a loudmouth author on that who claimed this would cause a shockwave) on a forum that I can C&P.
I don't know why that COI statement says three years. As far as I know it is a pro-forma. I think they all say that. Nothing to do with me.
In fact, I think COI statements are still inadequate in that they don't force contributors to make the positive statement that they have none. At present, you can fill in the (online) form and should you fail to disclose something then, if that is found out, you have only failed to disclose.
A positive statement would require you to affirm that you did not have such a conflict. Thus, I have added to the pro-forma COI statement, a direct, positive statement about my funding from ST, C4 and Wakers. I affirm that there was no other source of funding, and if that was untrue, I would either be lying or have a memory so bad I shouldn't be in research. I think all contributors to journals should be required to say something similar.
So, the three years thing must be some kind of "cordon sanitaire" that supposedly makes some kind of difference. But, as I say, nothing to do with me.
As to the journalism involved - if you're going to call out a public figure like Wakers, the ethical thing to do is to give the public figure a chance to respond.
As to the Dorey interview, I didn't have that big of a problem with it, since it was clear Dorey wasn't interested in answering questions but prattling on about anti-vax talking points. If someone is going to answer your questions there's no reason to continue interviewing them.
Brian, I'm sure you've already heard and will hear this from many people, but you deserve great credit and thanks for pinning this sleaze to the wall. I'm sure it's been a grueling battle at times, but you're a champ for perservering.
Brian, thanks for your work. You have proven that true investigative journalism isn't quite dead yet.
@ Brian : Thank you for your important work, your perseverence despite the vitriol that has been hurled at you by Wakefield's supporters, and your commenting here @ RI.
DW
Andrew Wakefield is one of those unsinkable rubber ducks at least as far as his true believer supporters are concerned. The main sign of progress is that he is rapidly loosing his "go to" status with the media looking for balance. This is probably the real progress.
Last I heard he was still living in Austin. Isn't there anyone out there who can use a new head of Integrated Medicine out there who can get him out of Texas. We have more than enough woo liars as it is.
Off topic, but it seems those you labeled cranks a month ago have been right about fluoride all along.
Too much fluoride in water, government says
High levels causing spots on teeth; recommended limit to be lowered
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40962808/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/
So you can watch Dr. Stranglelove all you want, but it won't change the fact that fluoridation was a public health-created disaster from the very beginning
Off topic, but it seems those you labeled cranks a month ago have been right about fluoride all along.
Too much fluoride in water, government says
High levels causing spots on teeth; recommended limit to be lowered
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40962808/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/
So you can watch Dr. Stranglelove all you want, but it won't change the fact that fluoridation was a public health-created disaster from the very beginning
@Brian Deer: I thought in the interview you made a truly great point that was one of my first thoughts after seeing Wakers' initial interview with Cooper, but no one else seems to be elaborating on it. If he really thinks your a hit man, the burden of proof under UK law (unless they changed it recently) would be on you to prove you are not. But that doesn't seem to be a play he wants to make. I'm wondering if there's any case you can make against him for his somewhat slanderous comments about your integrity? Give him a taste of his own medicine...?
Orac, I think this weekend calls for a nice, big slice of schadenfreude pie!
Brian Deer--your tenacity and perseverance are inspiring. Thank you.
I know this is meant figuratively, but I can't help thinking literally--there were some invasive procedures done in his study, were there not. :)
How does a woo-meister, who perhaps based a great deal of his anti-vax agenda on Wakefield's 1998 "project", *now* write anti-vax articles in the wake of Andy's most recent public televised humiliation ? See "What's Really to Blame for California's Whooping Cough Epidemic?"** Dr. Mercola explains it all for you, ( @ Mercola.com ; today) aided and abetted by new BFF, BLF.
** I'm rather surprized to see a *lack* of all-caps (REALLY) and scare-quotes ( "Epidemic").
Off topic, but it seems those you labeled cranks last month have been right about fluoride all along.
MSNBC reports:
Too much fluoride in water, government says
High levels causing spots on teeth; recommended limit to be lowered
So you can watch Dr. Stranglelove all you want, but it won't change the fact that fluoridation was a public health-created disaster from the very beginning
No links since the post was getting blocked
@Militant Agnostic
Epic MA, just epic.
I liked the Tracey Spicer interview of Meryl Dorey. She was a bit harsh, but understandably so considering she saw a child suffer from whooping cough. Not to mention Dorey wouldn't answer any of her questions.
Kudos to her for not letting Dorey hijack her radio show to further the AVN's vile agenda.
@Jay Gorden
Shame on you for defending that suckwad sad excuse for a monkeys ass and his f'd up "study". Wakefield's "study" was not "inconclusive", it was a dangerous fraudulent means to an end (i.e. money).
Unless, Dr. Jay, you find it acceptable to preform lumbar punctures and colonoscopies on developmentally delayed children without medical indication; doctor their medical histories to fit a sick self-serving agenda; than follow that up with a scare-mongering campaign that costs innocent lives. In which case you are deserving of the same antipathy I have reserved for him.
Yeah Sid, because spots on your teeth is a huge public health disaster!!!1!1!
Don't you even have anything on topic to say?
Sid,
Did you even read Orac's post about fluoridation? Nothing in it indicates that he would not be open to changes being made in water fluoridation and the possibility that it might need to be lowered. The problems pointed out in that post were mainly about other crank things they were promoting and none of that was addressed in that article.
Some selected quotes showing that he was open to this and would not be surprised by it:
More:
about fluorosis:
and finally, a quote that indicates that this type of report and the following reports indicated within the article are what are really needed if one wants to make the case to lower fluoride levels.
Of course, none of this validates those crank's points, which went far beyond fluorosis. Nothing in this story shows fluoride to be "a public health-created disaster from the very beginning"
In fact it seems just the opposite, that it was once required but now that we get fluoride from other sources it might not be required.
You have become a very boring and silly troll Sid. You are no better than augie these days. That is very sad.
Mr. Deer,
I was curious if you could elaborate on how you were able to get privileged access to confidential medical files of the Lancet 12.
@Jojo
Fluoride marketer Crest says it's a big deal:
Individuals Seen As More Attractive, Confident, Trustworthy And Financially Successful With Whiter Teeth
Cincinnati, OH (May 2007) - Today, results of a study conducted by an independent research firm provide new evidence that a beautiful white smile has a direct effect on successful interpersonal interactions, both socially and professionally. "The Impact of Whiter Teeth on Key First Impressions" study, commissioned by Crest Whitestrips, shows that a whiter smile substantially affects how others think of you when you first meet.
They were used as evidence in the GMC hearings. Much like how medical records were used in the American Autism Omnibus hearings. Here is part of the sanction:
This seems to indicate that the medical records of the children were taken into account. Plus, as a researcher working with the BMJ, he could have access to those records.
Please explain how that qualifies as a "huge public health disaster." Such terminology is typically understood to mean things like cholera epidemics...
Scott, didn't you know that according to Crest, spots on your teeth might lead to you making bad first impressions? Oh the humanity! Won't someone please think about the poor children's teeth!
@Jojo
Some people care about their appearance
@Travis
To bad none of Orac's efficacy studies could even reach the level of good quality
http://www.bmj.com/content/321/7265/855.full
Results: 214 studies were included. The quality of studies was low to moderate.
So based on the weakness of efficacy evidence I donât know how you concliude it was once required
----------------------------------------------------------
@Scott
I just had my spiritual advisor contact the late H. Trendley Dean. The first thing he wanted to know was how that fluoride thing worked out. I told him it was a disaster. Turned out it actually damaged kids teeth
@Sid: Gee, and Crest just happens to sell products that WHITEN your teeth, too. I'm shocked, shocked I say, to see that their studies show whiter teeth make you more successful.
I'm going to run right out now and buy Crest Teeth Whiteners to counteract the fluoride in the Crest toothpaste in case I get fluoridosis.
All I can say is that my husband grew up in an area of non-fluoridated water and he has problems with cavities. I grew up with fluoride and had very few (our parents had about the same number of cavities with some variation based on genetics). My children have always had fluoride in their water and they have few or no cavities. Anecdotal, yes. But fits in with the research. (Oh, and yes, the horror...we all drink TAP water! Not bottled, not designer, not in a plastic bottle.)
Try reading his BMJ Feature, he says so right there. Stop being a lazy sheep and try pointing out any inaccuracies in his research rather than just fret about what John Stone is whining about.
So, Sid can't defend Wakefield, so he changes the subject??? Typical.
Sid,
So, you found one review published 10 years ago that only included low to moderate quality studies and claim Orac can only propose poor evidence? His own post links to another systematic review of the literature done in 2008 only including papers published after 1996, did you even look at this or did you simply go on a fishing expedition to find an old review you liked? How many of the studies from the 2008 paper were low to moderate quality papers from in the study from 2000?
But that is really rather irrevelvant. Those quotes were just to show you that Orac already was willing to accept good evidence that might lead to changes in fluoridation policy, including not fluoridating water at all. That he never indicated that changes in policy such as this would be terrible or surprising. You still ignore that the complains of the cranks went far beyond the nastiness of fluorosis, a risk no one denies, and act as though this report somehow validates these.
Anyway, I am done with this here. If you want to talk about this find an appropriate place. I am not going to keep going off topic when it is so clear you will not even back your own claims up and simply pick at irrelevant side points ignoring the main thrust.
I love Sid Offit going off on the horrors of fluorosis but is so dismissive of the morbidity and mortality associated with vaccine-preventable diseases. It's effing comedy gold!
Measles and mumps are of no concern, but tooth spots are a scourge!
Loooook over here, nothing interesting in that Wakefield stuff! Sid has absolutely no defense, just a redirection.
That Tracey Spicer radio show is pure gold! After seeing Jenny McCarthy shout down experts, I've often desired seeing someone do it to an antivaxer. Given that Dorey was the one that harassed that family after their child's death it couldn't have happened to a nicer person. The best part is when she shut down her attempt to push her website for traffic and flat out said "interview is over".
Apparently Paul Offitt was on NPR today too, the antivaxers are fuming over it. Keep it up, I'm loving this huge shift in public awareness!
@Ge:
"In it you are basically saying that you think this is another case of 'telling both sides used wrong', something you've reported on before. I have to disagree with you. In a story about a link between autism and vaccines you would be right: you would only need to consult real experts to debunk a story like that. This is, however, not a story about vaccines. It's a story about a fraud (Wakefield) and the people he duped (the modern anti-vaccine movement)."
I wrote the Media Spy article to which Orac linked. On the matter of he-said-she-said, my objection - and that of other journalism critics - was not that CNN gave space for Wakefield to respond. It was that they used a series of false equivalences in order to "balance" the piece artificially.
"He said, she said" journalism refers to the practice of suggesting that "each side's claims were equally valid or, at least, equally incapable of being disproven" (that's how I've expressed it, anyway). The problem exists in the underlying model of legitimacy that is implied by CNN's article, not the literal fact that the reporters on that piece cited what "he said" as well as what "she said".
Wakefield accused Brian Deer of being paid by pharmaceutical interests. The natural response is to look at Brian Deer's financial disclosures: the conclusion being that there is no evidence to support Wakefield's claims. To then go on with a bizarre tangent about the fact that Brian Deer was paid by the BMJ and The Sunday Times to do his job is exceptionally egregious journalism. By going on this tangent, and framing it with terms like "Deer did not deny...", CNN implies that these insinuations about Deer's probity should be placed on level pegging with allegations about Wakefield's.
My educated guess is that the reason that CNN included this was two-fold:
(1) the need to have equal time in the article, even if that means filling out one "side" with fluff and irrelevant accusations.
(2) the need to avoid adjudication: to cast doubt upon Deer as well as Wakefield.
The reason why the second point is a bad guide for journalism should, by now, be self-evident. The reason why the first point is a bad guide for journalism is that it confuses means and ends. For the he-said-she-said journalist, achieving equal time is an end in itself. I think that shows a lack of responsibility and ambition on the part of journalists.
-----------
Getting back to Orac's piece, I should probably also note that I agree that Anderson Cooper's interview was far better than CNN's subsequent reporting. Cooper himself wrote an insightful blog post in which he mused about media coverage of the Wakefield scam, and it showed strong recognition of these very issues.
Offit:
http://npr.vo.llnwd.net/kip0/_pxn=1+_pxI0=A9622+_pxL0=begin+_pxM0=+_pxR…
#48: "Mr. Deer,
I was curious if you could elaborate on how you were able to get privileged access to confidential medical files of the Lancet 12*."
This is the feeble tack being taken by the AoA crowd. Note the similarity to the Texas case in which nurses revealing ethical misconduct by a woo-promoting doctor were charged with violating confidentiality of medical records. Anything to dodge addressing the real issues.
And you folks need to pay attention to coordinating your attacks with Andy Wakefield. Wakefield has claimed that Brian Deer never interviewed any parents of his victims patients as though that was some sort of impossibility, and here you are acknowledging that Deer did have enough information to make the sort of routine inquiries a good reporter would undertake.
(I think that's what's infuriated Wakefield and his apologists most about the latest fraud revelations. All along they've been alleging that the parents of kids in his study hadn't the slightest complaint about Wakefield's actions (which supposedly would make them A-OK). Deer's reporting makes clear that's not the case).
*This has a ring to it. Free the Lancet 12! (from painful, unnecessary and potentially injurious diagnostic procedures conducted by pseudoscientists with a financial ax to grind).
@Brian Deer,
I'll add my thanks too. You've taken some hits and nailed Wakefraud hard, twice, and followed through for way longer than many research project last.
Cheers!
Marcia, this addresses Offit's fantasy that (phantom)dropping rates of immunization (2:35) are in anyway responsible for whooping cough outbreaks
http://thevaccinemachine.blogspot.com/2011/01/ac-mnoonkin-5150.html
@ #55
Try reading his BMJ Feature, he says so right there. Stop being a lazy sheep and try pointing out any inaccuracies in his research rather than just fret about what John Stone is whining about.
Try reading his comments on BMJ. Stop being such a stupid git and understand that he knows their names (which are redacted in the GMC hearings) and family backgrounds...something that should not be made public to a hack journalist.
Sid, who is Robert Schecter, what are his qualifications and why should we believe him?
While it is wonderful to see the unfolding of Wakefields demolition, I'm still waiting to see someone go after the lawyers who paid him to carry out the fraudulent study so that they could make millions in a panic-driven class action suit.
Believe the data not the qualification
@Chris
He Is I, And I Am Him
Then post the data, not a random blog post. How is Robert Schecter more qualified than Paul Offit?
He brought up that most of the infants who died were Hispanic. He failed to note that all but one was too young to be vaccinated. They got it from somewhere, possibly an older child. So look at the Chart 4 of this report. From age six months on, which group has more pertussis?
Now back on subject: what defense do you have for Wakefield?
More and more desperate!
AoA attempts a bit of bait & switch by headlininng "Lancet 12 Parents Respond to Brian Deer BMJ GMC Allegations" (January 07, 2011)...clip from May 16, 2009.
Selective Hearing, Brian Deer and the GMC, Dr Andrew Wakefield Autism MMR Film
He Is I, And I Am Him
Well, that explains why he doesn't care if Hispanic kids die.
So Sid created a blog and tries to write... His grasp of English makes me cry. But that is not the point. The point is the evidence he pretends to present. It's all bunk, bunk, and more bunk. Sid, go be a writer for AoA, it fits you better.
"..something that should not be made public to a hack journalist."
I'm not sure if there is support to the suggestion that Deer learned about the additional background information by doing anything harder than asking around.
There's certainly very little support for the idea that he was handed non-redacted confidential files.
Given that several of the parents have written or spoken about the topic publically, several have allowed themselves and their children to be filmed and photographed in situations that strongly imply the connection, at least one was publically known to be seeking damages beforehand (and was named in a national paper), several have approached him in public places (and some filmed themselves doing so), and some are known to have spoken to him knowing that he was a journalist, it is not reasonable to term background data as 'privileged'.
several [parents] have approached [Brian Deere] in public places (and some filmed themselves doing so), and some are known to have spoken to him knowing that he was a journalist
That is unpossible, for Wakefield tells us in the CNN interview that "He has not interviewed the parents. That is absolutely not true", and we know that Wakefield always tells the truth.
It seems that Deere is simultaneously under attack for not being good enough at journalism ("But I do know for sure that he's not a journalist like you are") and for being too good at it and finding out things beyond the official statements.
""He has not interviewed the parents. That is absolutely not true""
Which wouldn't tally with the claims of one of the parents that Deer used a false name when he interveiwed her.
What appears to be the Autism Files' official Facebook page also has an article where Deer is claimed to have interviewed at least one of the parents.
It seems odd that Wakefield claims Deer has not interviewed any parent, when his supporters are attempting to use the claims that Deer did as ammunition against Deer.
Why? So that so-called "hack journalist" won't be able to expose the frauds committed by a hack researcher? That's your real objection; you pretend to be outraged over your hypothesized violation of the children's privacy but you didn't bat an eye when they were subjected to invasive, painful and clinically valueless spinal taps. The actual welfare of the children is something you couldn't give a shit about; what really matters to you is the welfare of Wakefield. I'm so happy to report that it's headed for all-time lows and plummeting as we speak.
I thought Nicole Sandler did as good a job as Anderson Cooper with both Wakefield and Deer. Your help was much appreciated, I was corresponding with her several times.
And thanks for going on Nicole Sandler's Show, Brian Deer!
First, it is gratifying to note that Anderson Cooper would have none of Wakefield's dissembling. But,first,we're treated to a "greatest" hits of Wakefield's favorite whines.Specifically,he falsified data in the study that suggested children developed autism after being vaccinated for measles,mumps and rubella.
@willfully ignorant idjit
Twy weading weally, weally slowly.
Original Sources Best
Brian Morgan
Oooops...blockquote fail. Everything posted below "Brian Morgan"
belongs to the quote.
@Cyril Washbrook,
Giving equel weight to each accusation was indeed a profoundly idiotic way to cover this story. I think we agree on this point: Wakefield should be able to respond to these accusations, but his own, baseless accusations should not recieve equal value.
And Sid - coming in here, changing to topic just to try to advertise your content on your own blog, isn't very appropriate either.
So Sid comes and posts an extremely OT comment. When that doesn't work he uses his blog as evidence of...what now?
At least this is a new MO from Sid. Glad he is mixing it up to stay "interesting".
Kind of irrelevant given that, in the US, self-respecting journalists worth their salt seem to have had their endangered species protection revoked to make way for oil prospecting in their native habitat...
Can anyone respond to this video reading of a letter from the parents of the Wakefield kids? Any sources for comments or a written transcript of it?
An anti vaxxer sent it out and I'd like to give an intelligent response about it. The letter is from 2008 during the GMC investigation. Not too timely to bring out now. She said the Wakefield thing is not over and the "truth" will come out soon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHrgYxqcU0w
Thanks to anyone who can help.
I wanted to get this out before reading all the comments, so sorry if this has been addressed. I'll read them all now.
@86
Yes, some of Wakefieldâs followers are true believers. The nine hundred members of the Peoples Temple who followed Rev. Jim Jonesâ instructions to commit ârevolutionary suicideâ by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid at Jonestown were true believers, too â but that doesnât mean that what they believed was correct.
There were lots of cogent responses from last year when Wakers was dumped by the GMC. Check archives here and at Science Based Medicine. I'd link but every time I do that my post is held for hours (subjectively) and the SBM site is easy to find.
Thanks Brian and MikeMa.
I'd already sent some stuff from SBA and here to the group.
This video was part of her response. I decided to link to the BMJ series and hope that countered it well.
and Brian, the woman who sent the video link really wants that Kool-Aid too.
I'm so excited. I just got the very first troll of my own.
Well, as soon as you tire of hyperbole about anti-vaccination loons and Brian Deer not receiving COI money for all of three years, time to go after me and those other California anti-fluoride crazies.
Oh! Wait! We were right. And "science" will now adjust. Science . . .
http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/news/20110107/us-wants-to-reduce-fluor…
Best of luck with this one, guys.
Jay
And Dr. Jay continues the off-topic diversion!
So why defend Wakefield so vehemently? Even without the subsequent fraud revelations it was a poorly done set of twelve case studies that did not find a connection to any MMR vaccine (there were two separate vaccine represented) and autism.
Dr. Jay, what do you gain from being a Wakefield fanboy?
The word is "commnetator", Sid. And now that you've got your own vanity blog, how about spending time writing that, finding out about some of the rules of English grammar, and generally keeping your internet wanking to yourself? Thankyou.
Speaking of which:
What on earth does fluoridation have to do with anything? Don't you have rich youngsters not to vaccinate, Dr Jay Gordon, MD, FAAP?
And to echo everyone else here, well done Brian Deer!
Did you happen to catch his comment @ #32?
@91 Dr. Jay Gordon: Well, as soon as you tire of hyperbole about anti-vaccination loons and Brian Deer not receiving COI money for all of three years, time to go after me and those other California anti-fluoride crazies....
Shorter Dr. Jay: "Look! A Zeppelin!"
I just got the very first troll of my own.
And so ad infinitum.
Well, you see, getting vaccine-preventable diseases is natural. Ugly spots on your teeth are artificial and thus teh debil.
Funny that Jay Gordon tries the same non-sequiter as one of RI's most annoying brain dead trolls. I guess small minds think alike.
SC @94 I think his reading comprehension may be impaired
@ Jay Gordon
You know, you and me don't seem to have the same definition of "being right".
To use an archery metaphor, in order to be right, you have to hit the target. Maybe not dead center, but at least in the inner circles of the target.
Saying "Fluoride is a highly poisonous chemical waste and useless at preventing cavities" is not the same as "the dose is too high, let's reduce it".
Conversely, to keep using the same metaphor, there are different way of being wrong, i.e. to miss the target.
You could miss the target by inches. At least, you were shooting in the right direction. Eventually, you may manage to hit it. It could be by luck more than by skill.
You could have your back to the target. No chance whatsoever to hit the target, here.
And finally, you could shoot at the wall, and then go paint the target wherever your arrow embedded itself. Fraud.
Now, tell me. To which group of archers belong the science on water fluoridation, anti-fluoridation cranks who believe it's a conspiracy to control the mind of US citizens, and former Dr Wakefield?
Dr. Jay Gordon, MD, FAAP,
Biochemistry? How much? And I don't mean long time ago in some class you had as an undergrad. I mean as in useful knowledge for the current discussion on reducing the required levels of Fluoride in drinking water. For example, how much is too much? How much is not enough? Which has more Fluoride, sea water or tap water? Which has less, tap water or water from the lakes in Kenya? Can you provide a biologically plausible pathway to support claims made against Fluoride by yourself and others?
Finally, when you were allegedly misquoted in the Penn & Teller show about anti-vaccine activists, like yourself, what exactly did you mean? You seemed to imply in your clarification of the quote that not saying not to vaccinate goes against the medical establishment. So does the medical establishment say not to vaccinate? I've asked this of you several times, doc, and you don't seem to want to answer the question.
I await your reply in a comfortable position, as I am sure it will take you an extended period of time to reply, if at all... Also so I don't fall over and hurt myself while laughing. Thank you for your time.
DISCLAIMER: I have received monetary and health benefits from Fluoride in the form of less dental interventions, a brighter smile (which has helped in landing jobs and women), and fresh breath.
What's up Jay?
Not getting enough, if any, attention critical to the nourishment of the narcisstic egotism?
Bah! narcisstic to narcissistic!
@101
Probably, and also trying in any way to distract from the egg in his face from the Wakefield debacle.
Anyways, it may be a bit late, but thanks, Mr. Deer, for your through reporting.
Pathetic, Dr. Jay. Pathetic. You can't stay on topic because staying on topic makes you look really, really bad. Clearly, you didn't bother reading my post on fluoride, which was mentioned a few comments up.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/01/as_andrew_wakefields_defender…
In the meantime, here's a quote from the article you cite:
Which is...science! Public policy being revised based on scientific recommendations! What a radical concept. Not that science ever changed your mind about vaccines. You continue to promote your "clinical experience" over science when you claim that you "changed the way you vaccinate" back in 1980.
I see we've been blessed by some drive-by crazy from our antivax pal, Jay Gordon. Not that he has anything to say about the expanding Wakefield debacle (aside from a content-free potshot at Brian Deer), so he decides to flaunt his anti-fluoridation credentials.
Never knew Jay was a cheerleader for anti-fluoridation crazies, but you learn something every day.
So Jay is using his website to promote the antics of loons like the "Fluoride Action Network" and Gary Null.
Note that the article Jay reproduces on his site mentions the original discovery of stained teeth from natural fluoride in the Southwest without revealing that people living there also had excellent cavity-free teeth, which led to the realization that water fluoridation at much lower levels would also protect teeth. Now that there's a science-based recommendation to lower fluoride levels to prevent the possibility of minor cosmetic changes in teeth, Jay wants to take credit for promoting the activities of people who view fluoridated water as deadly poisonous and responsible for all manner of ailments. This is a pediatrician looking out for kids?
Tell us Jay, is there any sort of health crankery (particularly the sort that threatens the health of children) that you won't endorse?
Jay Gordon: "I spent Saturday at an incredible conference in Chicago. Any thoughts I ever had about wavering in my support of Andrew Wakefield have dissolved."
Wavering yet, Jay?
Lynn Wilhelm (#86) asks:
Somehow, I don't think this is what she had in mind.
I doubt that anything will shake St. Andy's remaining supporters, if they haven't been dissuaded by all that has happened so far. As someone mentioned above, hundreds of people knowingly committed suicide on Jim Jones' command.
As they say in Yorkshire, "There's nowt so queer as folk!"
Prometheus
Probably not - ethically challenged narcissists have to stick together.
*is wondering where Prometheus is from....*
I see that you have had this charge sufficiently explained to you, at least for someone who has a couple of neurons to rub together. These parents are self-identified moron. Now, would you care to try and point out any flaws in his reporting or just continue to caterwaul John Stone style?
Latest from Wakefield, via his Facebook page:
Between January 3rd and 7th 2011, an international meeting was held in Montego Bay, Jamaica, to discuss current vaccine science and policy safety concerns. Delegates from around the world included senior scientists and physicians, editors of scientific journals, experts in vaccine regulation, social science and health policy, consumer child health advocates, legal experts and members of the media.
The meeting was held in response to acknowledged significant increases in immune and inflammatory diseases in children and adults ranging from asthma to neurodevelopmental disorders, and the emergence of previously rare but serious autoimmune health conditions during the past three decades. The concern of delegates paralleled those of ninety percent of recently polled parents in the U.S., who place vaccine safety as their number one medical research priority, while health consumers in other developed countries are also questioning vaccine science and policy. Delegates affirmed an urgent need for methodologically sound vaccine science to address eroding public confidence in national vaccine policies.
Information was presented from the peer reviewed scientific literature that raised serious concerns about gaps in scientific knowledge about the biological mechanisms and genetic and biological high risk factors for vaccine induced brain and immune dysfunction, including lack of adequate safety data, particularly for delayed or chronic health outcomes; vaccine additives such as aluminum adjuvants (immune stimulating agents) and mercury preservatives; multiple vaccine exposures; bias in reporting of risks and benefits, and novel vaccine-associated autoimmune diseases.
The need to identify research priorities and conduct bench science and clinical studies to identify how and why certain individuals may be at increased risk of vaccine induced chronic health problems or death was stressed. The need to minimize undue commercial and political influence on academic institutions, medical journals and lay press was also discussed as a factor that impedes open, unbiased scientific inquiry into important outstanding questions about vaccine science and policy.
Representatives of federal agencies responsible for vaccine regulation, promotion, and safety were invited to present but declined.
Referenced presentations, peer reviewed materials and video excerpts from the meeting will be posted on the web in spring 2011. For more information contact Barbara Loe Fisher (barbloe@aol.com) or Dr. Christopher Shaw (cashawlab@gmail.com)
@Broken Link
Did he really cite that crappy poll on research priorities? I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he would dishonestly use something like that to support his anti-vax nonsense.
@112
God, what a joke of a conference. And yet I have a feeling that the anti-vax camp will use this to keep promoting their fraudulent position still, even after Wakefield's downfall.
@113
Well, what would you expect from a fraud like Wakefield. Twisting the truth to fit his own needs.
Here is a list of the speakers in Jamaica. I recognize many of them.
My comment in #111 was directed at NotTelling in comment #65:
But I doubt any amount of education would get in the way of true belief.
Obamaswain! Blaylock! Deth! Fisher! Wakefield! It's like a who's who of anti-vax heroes. If I was Sid Offit or augustine, I'd hop a flight to Jamaica and bring my autograph pad. Or a t-shirt from one of the "Green Our Vaccines" rallies that I can get them all to sign.
And for supposedly poor and ostracized researchers, they were able to book a pretty swanky resort in Jamaica. I guess if they're going to subvert global public health policy, they should do it in style.
http://www.tryallclub.com
Anyone know much about Christopher Shaw? I have been to UBC a lot and know many people who have gone to the school or are there now. I do not remember reading his name in this context before so I am curious if he has a history of being crazy prior to this or if he possible viewed this as just another item to place on his publication list and CV.
I never heard of him, but I left a message about him here. Vancouver* has a very active skeptic movement, I hope they can find out about him.
*I am a wee bit south of there, and we are small and wimpy. Though I did hear the organizer of our Skeptics in the Pub ask a question at the SGU Vancouver live recording (and I really wanted to be there, but hey, I have kids who need me even on the weekends!). My dream is to be part of a homeopathic suicide in front of Bastyr next February, I just don't know if our little disparate group can pull it together.
Re Chris Shaw:
I commented above at #30 that Shaw appears to be one of the organizers of this Disease Promotion event. He also is a big promoter of the idea that aluminum adjuvants cause all sorts of horrible stuff. I am expecting some more information about him shortly.
"I see that you have had this charge sufficiently explained to you, at least for someone who has a couple of neurons to rub together. These parents are self-identified moron. Now, would you care to try and point out any flaws in his reporting or just continue to caterwaul John Stone style?"
From the parent of one of the children:
"Brian Deer had the names of the Lancet Children and dates they entered the Royal Free hospital on his webâsite for all to see long before the GMC hearing. His view was that some of us parent were in the media. The problem with that is that I did not tell the media that my boy was part of the Lancet study until Brian Deer let it be known. I have eâmailed him on numerous occasions asking him how he got hold of my childâs medical notes without my permission. He has never interviewed me or my family and has not replied to this question.
I believe Brian Deer got hold of confidential information on our children and want to know how this can happen. He told me in an eâmail that he managed to prise confidential documents from the Royal Free Hospital. This question below has not been answered by Brian Deer: Could Brian Deer also please let the BMJ know the means by which UK legislation allows free lance (or any other) journalists, to view original research files, and compare them with Royal Free (or any other hospital or private practice) medical files of children with full identities available, all test results available, without parental consent; the studies' authors consent; privacy restraints or hospital ethics committee approval?"
I guess you really are that imbecilic.
Let me make this clear, you brainless and drooling twit; the parents never gave their permissions for Deer to access the medical information of their children.
@ Not Telling, A parental report is not proof of anything. Produce the emails and the parent and you might have something, until then, you're still whining and not addressing any flaws in Mr. Deer's reporting.
Moreover, even if it is true that Deer had information not authorized for release from a parent, it does not necessarily mean he did anything wrong. Unless he actually broke into the files or something, then he is allowed to possess the information, and the person at fault is the one who gave it to him (or, more specifically, actually passed the information on improperly - he might have gotten it second or third hand). Given that, why jump to the conclusion that Deer did something wrong? I mean, it's not like we don't know that one of the people who had access to the information is dishonest and is unethical, for example. If St. Andy tell someone he shouldn't have, and a good investigative reporter tracks that person down and gets the information, then the reporter hasn't done anything wrong.
Not Telling wrote:
Deer didn't need their permission, as he was able to obtain that information by combing through the transcript of Wakefield's fitness-to-practice hearing that was published by the General Medical Council, as noted here:
http://www.webmd.boots.com/children/news/20110106/bmj-declares-mmr-stud…
Even if Brain Deer did something wrong, it would not in any way vindicate Wakefield. The evidence that clearly indicates Wakefield committed fraud. Brian Deer's (alleged) conduct does not change the facts.
Because whether or not Deer had permission is FAR less important than whether or not Wakefield faked his research. The only reason anyone is concerned about Deer's actions seems to be that it allowed him to discover the true depth of Wakefield's fraud. The worst Deer did was to look at the records. He did not publish them or release them to the world. Wakefield, on the other hand, committed actual violations of the bodily integrity of these children, and what Deer discovered was that there was actually no medical cause for him to do so, and that the results did not even support his hypothesis and so had to be altered so that they did.
I cannot understand why anyone would be more outraged at Brian Deer than Andrew Wakefield.
Why are the more outraged at Deer? Because he had the cheek to show that their emperor had no clothes on.
To clarify a point I have clarified many times. I read the children's hospital records, under legal supervision, as the result of an order against Andrew Wakefield issued by a High Court judge. Thus there can be no question of any wrongdoing whatsoever.
Since Wakefield abandoned his action against me and, very sadly, we didn't get him to trial, I could make no collatoral use of the knowledge I had obtained by reading the records.
However, one cannot un-know something. I determined that the best course of action would be to attend the Wakefield GMC where, as it happens, those medical records, plus a great deal more were introduced in public. I think I was the only non-participant who took any notice, although the anti-vaxxers paid someone to sit through the hearing.
This is how the critical patient data has come to be published in the BMJ, after staff checking, independent of me, and peer review.
I hope that makes it clear, since it seems some people are interested.
@81 -
Twy weading weally, weally slowly.
You DARE mock the one, the only, the magnificent FUDD?!?!?!?
Say, ever heard Robin Williams singing Bruce Springsteen's "Fire" a la Fudd? Helpless-laughter-inducing. I'd imagine there's likely a snippet of it on YouTube.
@Brian Deer:
So, was this you being allowed access to the medical records in order to defend yourself against Wakefield's lawsuit?
Brian Deer writes:
I read the children's hospital records, under legal supervision, as the result of an order against Andrew Wakefield issued by a High Court judge.
So not only was Deer's knowledge of the medical records obtained in an entirely appropriate manner, but two other important points also become apparent:
- Had Wakefield wanted to keep the children's records confidential, he could have abandoned his action against Deer at that point, rather than later. But the confidentiality of those records was evidently in no way as important to Wakefield as maintenance of his spurious and later abandoned suit.
- Wakefield, and any of his allies who cared to find out, would have known Deer obtained his information in an appropriate manner. So rather than attack the information Deer's unearthed, which they can't, they decide to distract attention by leveling ad hominem accusations they either already know or should know to be utterly false. The lies never stop, apparently.
Oh, and augustine - verse for today, Matthew 7:16. If you're looking for one side or another to accuse of being pawns of the Devil, try the ones who are continually dishonest.
Finally, Mr. Deer - Thanks.
"It is quite clear that you do not understand English. Brian Deer is not a member of the Sunday Times staff. He is a freelance journalist who runs his own website and blog and is not under the control or direction of the Sunday Times. Mr. Deer should not represent himself as a Sunday Times journalist. He is not a member of staff, does NOT have a regular salary from us, is not on our pension scheme and pays his own tax as a freelance. If he says that he writes for the Sunday Times that would be correct. He is a contributor to The Sunday Times on an occasional basis but again we have no control over him ..."
- Alaistair Brett, Legal Manager, Sunday Times
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/01/keeping-anderson-cooper-honest-is-br…
And in other news, accusations of malfeasance against Woodward and Bernstein have completely absolved Nixon and his advisers of culpability in Watergate.
#128 Brian Deer
Indeed!
By the way, I deliberately linked (#81)to Brian Morgan's post at bmj knowing full well that anti-vaxx cultists, on seeing a link connected to your name, would instantly go into an ear-fingering rendition of "Lalalalala" and not follow on and read.
Oh and massive cheers for your extensive efforts.
~~~
#129 Jud
I have now :)
Excawent!
Thank you.
With acknowledgment to Brian Deer's website I quote Mr Justicy Eady's judgement:
"7. Those proposals need to be put in place very carefully. The access to the documents, for the proper purpose of preparing the defence, should be on a restricted basis. The number of copies needs to be restricted and the number of people to see them needs to be restricted, and I will give the parties an opportunity of working out an agreed order in that respect. The draft order, when it is available, should also be submitted to Mr. Dutton for his comments and observations and also to any representative of the parents, including of course Miss Home-Roberts, who has been before me today and has helped as best she can, having been very recently instructed on behalf of the person who has been referred to as parent 3, so that the parents' interests and the children's interests can be properly represented in the formulation of that order. It can then be placed before me and, if and insofar as there is any continuing dispute as to its terms, I will attempt to resolve that dispute. But I envisage that it would not be necessary for the un-redacted copies to be seen, except on a very limited basis."
Manifestly, Mr Justice Eady only made the documents available for the limited purposes of Brian Deer's defence.
I know that you have a severe comprehension problem John. Did you not even bother to read Mr. Deer's response in comment #128? Here is the relevant passage:
Now kindly respond to the actual content of Mr. Deer's BMJ feature or just shut up. You are beyond pathetic with the level of carping you're doing.
Hallo, John Stone. Have you bothered looking up the definition of "complainant" yet? Last time I checked Age of Autism was still pushing the lie that Brian Deer was the "complainant" against Wakefield and deleting comments which pointed out that "complainant" is a specific legal role which one does not enter merely because one makes a complaint. Are you under the delusion that by publicly defending Wakefield you can announce yourself to be his "public defender"? No? Then perhaps you should take down your lies that Brian Deer was the complainant.
By the way, since he posted four hours before you, you surely had the opportunity to read Brian Deer's explanation of how he came to have the data you are complaining of him having, at comment 128 to this post. What part of "I determined that the best course of action would be to attend the Wakefield GMC where, as it happens, those medical records, plus a great deal more were introduced in public" was too difficult for you to comprehend?
Once again, Anti-vaxxers can't attack the evidence and so in desperation attack the person presenting the evidence....yawn.
@Callie: "Dr. Wakefield committed actual violations of the bodily integrity of the children?! " I believe you must be meaning that the Royal Free hospital as a group did this, not just Dr. Wakefield, as convenient as that may be for you..I just read a statement made by the parents of the children and they actually reported relief of their childrens' distressing symptoms for the first time. That's a far cry feom "outraged."Saint Deer will be put under increasing scrutiny, I'm sure. I notice that "Ge" -post# 6 has some issues with the witch hunt, too.
Oh and Orac, in case your too blind to see this, Dr. jay was just pointing out that what doctor's think and recommend does change, such as the situation with fluoride.
@Callie: "Dr. Wakefield committed actual violations of the bodily integrity of the children?! " I believe you must be meaning that the Royal Free hospital as a group did this, not just Dr. Wakefield, as convenient as that may be for you..I just read a statement made by the parents of the children and they actually reported relief of their childrens' distressing symptoms for the first time. That's a far cry feom "outraged."Saint Deer will be put under increasing scrutiny, I'm sure. I notice that "Ge" -post# 6 has some issues with the witch hunt, too.
Oh and Orac, in case your too blind to see this, Dr. jay was just pointing out that what doctor's think and recommend does change, such as the situation with fluoride.
@ Dangerous Bacon 23: you mention Dr. Wakefield's competing measles vaccine, but it becomes apparent that you don't really know the facts. It was not Dr Wakefield who even owned the patent but the Royal Free, and furthermore it was not a vaccine but rather a vaccine transfer which was designed to help children who suffered with persistent measles infection whether by vaccine or wild measles. Whether it was simply not effective or too "touchy" in that it suggested children could suffer from persistent measles infection and bowel pathology, it was abandoned. If you don't even know that then it just shows how little you know and how one sided your research is. Good question about e 3 years, though. Before that I believe Deer was paid by a pharma front group.
I believe "transfer factor" is the more correct term for post 141. It was in vaccine format, though. But it was not, not a competing vaccine.
About the "transfer factor" patent, take a look at this Leftbrain/Rightbrain post. To summarize:
1) The patent covers the uses of the transfer factor as both a therapeutic agent and a prophylaxis (preventative). I'm not sure what a preventative medicine for a communicable could be besides a vaccine.
2) Wakefield submitted a business plan for a company which would investigate the use of the transfer factor as an alternative to vaccines. So, even if using the transfer factor as a preventative medicine is somehow not a vaccine, he'd still stand to make a profit off of selling it if MMR usage fell.
3) Though the patent was filed in the name of the Royal Free, it was filed by Wakefield, without the prior approval or knowledge of Royal Free.
Damn, it's amazing how fast the anti-vaxxers go from being medical "experts" to being legal "experts" when their first area of "expertise" no longer supports their position.
Hey guys, your best support of Wakefield's paper is "I don't understand British common law but I think it makes Brian Deer look bad". Time to give it up.
There's still the sunk costs fallacy. Admitting Wakefield is a fraud would require backing down from years of emotional investment, and they'd like to get something back, anything, even if it's just taking down somebody else with him.
Gah, the anti-vax braintrusts are crawling from the woodwork. @ Anon, we know the facts but I see your screed is predictably devoid of any supporting evidence, including the dumb speculation about the vast pharma conspiracy funding everything. Here is the patent application and Mr. Deer was even kind enough to highlight relevant portions for the searing intellects that comprise Andy's Merry Band of Goofballs: http://briandeer.com/wakefield/vaccine-patent.htm
Anonymous:
I was thinking mostly of the blood draws, actually, which he personally performed, outside of the hospital setting, and which were among the more egregious of his ethical violations totally apart from the scientific misconduct. One cannot possibly blame the Royal Free for that.
Of the twelve, as far as I know, he did not *personally* perform the colonoscopies and lumbar punctures. However, the procedures were done under his order, in the absence of clinical need, and in the absence of informed consent. To suggest that Wakefield is somehow blameless and the Royal Free entirely to blame is beyond disingenuous. These are not benign procedures; indeed, one child was nearly killed, and for what? Wakefield didn't even use the actual findings from that child; he manipulated the data to make it look different than what it was. A child nearly *died* merely so that Wakefield would have a name to put with the fake results.
Defend that if you will, Anonymous.
Callie
A blood draw? Among the more egregious? Are you listening to yourself?
The first polio trials went into orphanages and asked(paid?) the orphanage manager if they could experiment the vaccine on the poor unsuspecting orphans.
Is that egregious? Or is it only egregious if you disagree with it?
Also, Royal Free as a group, and the physician(s) who personally did the procedures, most probably did so while trusting that Wakefield (a licensed medical doctor) ordered the tests because of clinical need. I mean, I've never been a hospital administrator, but I doubt that they vet each and every order of a medical test to make sure that it's clinically indicated, so they just have to trust that their licensed medical doctors are ordering medical tests in an ethical manner.
With regard to his patents (on which we will have more to say in a BMJ report out I believe Tuesday evening), Wakefield applied for them, put them in the medical school's name, but they didn't know he'd applied for them. They found out some time later.
His plan was clearly and explicitly to develop products for "the replacement of attenuated viral vaccines".
Oh and by the way, I'm a member of both the Times Newspapers and News International pension schemes, and it is Alistair Brett, who wrote an overworked and stressed email to a Mr Clifford Miller concerning my website about six years ago who doesn't work for The Sunday Times.
Although I don't count myself among their number, many, if not a clear majority of the most sucessful journalists in both Britain and the US - including TV anchors - are self-employed. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Anderson Cooper was self-employed.
Callie, More importantly the parents all defend what Dr. Wakefield did. Aggregious as this might be , check out the video at Age of Autism. The parents said their children were much better after going through the clinic and they got some real help for the first time. I find it funny that you often defend the "pain" of the needle for he child to gain ( immunity). In this case you are maligning the pain (biopsies) for the gain (less bowel pain). Who are you to tell these parents that they are wrong? Noy one of the parents is complaining, in fact they only have positive things to say about this doctor.
Oh, I see, the fact that offit made millions off his patent is fine, but god forbid Dr. Wakefield tried to do something to help kids. And Offit was on the committee to actually vote his own vaccine to be included on the schedule. You people make me laugh!
1) The 12 children from the study got treatment from Wakefield, and not just medical tests?
2) Was it their autism that got better, or something like gastrointestinal problems?
3) How do they know that they wouldn't have gotten better anyways, without the treatment?
4) Assuming for the sake of the argument that it was Wakefield's treatment which caused them to get better, this doesn't necessarily indicate that their autism was caused by the measles virus, unless the treatment consisted solely of Wakefield's measles transfer factor.
No, it's that he didn't reveal it as a conflict of interest when he published his paper and gave interviews/speeches about it, and then kept denying that he had any sort of conflict of interest when it was pointed out.
So, Anon, did you enjoy the conference in Jamaica? Was it fun? Did you get to rub elbows with these guys?
Or did you just donate money to them so they could go?
@144
Of course even if Brian Deer had obtained the medical records by forcing his way into Wakefield's house, tying him up and putting a starving wolverine in Wakefield's pants, Wakefield would still be guilty of fabricating his data and Wakefield's results would still be bullshit.
Brian Deer seems somewhat confused. Of course, if he had access to data through the GMC hearing that would be one thing, but if he is also saying he was able to make use of the data that Mr Justice Eady allowed him to have only for other purposes then he should not have done so, and it is foolish of him to say it. But then the whole story has been spun round confidential material he has had access to since 2003/4 and not merely since November 2006, and Mr Justice Eady's ruling. So neither the GMC or the Edy ruling answer much.
Incidentally, I guess BD is member of the Times and Sunday Times pension scheme because he was in fact an employee many years ago, and not because he is presently contributing ot it.
What is laughable Anon is your use of tired anti-vax canards. Your argument is a Tu Quoque and a bad one at that. Wakefield never intended to help any children; his intent from the start was for his own personal and financial gain, otherwise he wouldn't have falsified medical records and changed, what were normal gut biopsy results to abnormal.
Dr. Offit did not sit on the ACIP board who approved his Rotateq vaccine. He sat on the board that approved a competing vaccine (Rotashield), years earlier. But feel free to provide supporting evidence for your completely false assertions.
@ John Stone, still whining and still very wilfully dishonest I see. Can't you address the content of Mr. Deer's BMJ feature? But that takes some intellectual chops doesn't it?
PS Contrary to Brian Deer I understand that Alistair Brett's comment to Clifford Miller was not made "about six years ago" but last year, and it wasn't about Deer's website but out of irritation at him referring to Deer as a Sunday Times journalist.
Brian Deer, tool of Big Pharma:
Are we talking about this Brian Deer, and this Sunday Times? I don't see anybody wrestling him to the ground.
http://briandeer.com/solved/dateline-nbc.htm
John, let me see if I have your viewpoint accurate. You don't take issue with the actual evidence in the investigation by Deer, you just feel that there's something 'fishy' about the way he obtained the information. You have no proof of any wrongdoing, but just feel something's not right. However, you don't refute the evidence, nor it's conclusions, is that your stance?
Also, you and Anon seem to be saying that, even if Wakers did falsify data as seems to be the case, it doesn't matter, because he did what he did because he cares so much about children and autism. Furthermore, despite falsifying data, he did it for a good cause, to bring to light the problems with vaccines. Though, here again, you have no actual proof of that either. Is that about it?
augustine:
Absolutely that's egregious. There are many examples of egregious crimes committed by so-called doctors throughout history; Wakefield is merely the latest. That doesn't excuse a lick of what Wakefield did.
Anon:
Pain without gain is utterly worthless. The children at the birthday party got five pounds for their pain and risk, and nothing else. The children whose meninges were punctured and whose bowels were biopsied for Wakefield's "science" got nothing -- have you read anything written about this at all? The biopsies were *normal* -- there was only one child among the twelve who had any gut issues at all, and Wakefield managed to actually miss that one! (He wrote the child up, like the others, as having "nonspecific colitis", which was diagnosed by looking at a perfectly normal intestinal biopsy and deciding that wouldn't help Wakefield's argument unless it was declared abnormal. But in fact, that child had severe constipation, which was not resolved by anything Wakefield did.)
The video you cite, Anon, is *not* about the twelve in the study. The twelve in the study did not experience a resolution in their GI issues. Largely, this was because they didn't have any to begin with.
And please, don't forget that one of the twelve was almost *killed* by the colonoscopy, and any developmental delays were certainly not helped by his long stay in the pediatric ICU. Oh yeah, that's "real help" all right.
This says 'Sunday Times investigation' and has Deer's name on it. I guess The Sunday Times would have spotted the error if he wasn't one of their reporters.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1027636.e…
It looks as though it was on the front page - which I guess they read.
Callie Arcale
Why wasn't Salk attacked by medicine? Is he a "so-called" doctor or a real doctor? Was his act of non consent experimentation on unsuspecting orphans egregious or not? You've already said it was. Why the double standard?
Why all the concern about pediactric colonoscopies now? How many colonoscopies are done "just in case" or "to rule out something" by junior doctors? The system dictates this. If colonoscopies are this dangerous, is the standard practice of medicine endangering many children by performing unncessary (in hindsight) procedures?
As bad as Big Medicine is and has been when it comes to ethics why all the "pearl clutching" now?
Ideology? power? Money?
@augie
O, ye of the mighty intellect that threatens to dwarf entire galaxies! I realize that one of your greatness must certainly have considered this already, but please allow one as utterly worthless as myself to point out that modern ethical laws have only been around for a couple decades, and they are continually evolving. Were Salk's experiments to be conducted tomorrow, using the same methods, they would most certainly be rightfully besmackened by us and the medical establishment. Now, if anyone other than you were to judge much older events by today's standards, I would say they were a fool. But clearly, since it is you, I must certainly be mistaken.
A thousand thank yous, O Mover of Worlds, for your allowance of one so pitiably small as myself to speak.
"but if he is also saying he was able to make use of the data that Mr Justice Eady allowed him to have only for other purposes then he should not have done so, and it is foolish of him to say it."
A quick read of the relevant post from Mr Deer indicates, quite clearly, that he is not saying this.
A quick note must be made, Mr Justice Eady did not - arguably could not - at any point prohibit Mr Deer from using the information if he also received it from a legitimate source, such as the GMC hearing, or his own investigations and interviews.
Whether he should have reported on the GMC hearing in the manner he did has been questioned, although none of the multiple commentators have been able to find a law, order, code, standard, policy, agreement or contract that prohibits him from having done so, despite repeated requests.
If there's evidence that Deer published information that could only have been derived from confidential records, and that he did so before he was awarded legitimate access rights, then that evidence would be of interest - assuming it's of uncharacteristically sufficient quality.
Also, if evidence exists of Deer revealing confidential information exclusively from the files, and that this evidence pre-dates the GMC hearing, then a direct Harvard system reference will be needed.
Toddy
Is ethics evolving or are laws considering ethics evolving?
Is ethics a new concept to medicine? What is mainstream medicine doing today that will be considered unethical tomorrow?
Were the Nazi doctor's technically ethical because there were no laws defining what was ethical? Was Salk ethical because of a technicality? Would it be wrong to say that previous vaccine experimentation has been unethical?
So is it considered OK if it turns out that mainstream medicine can use it? Is it considered MORE unethical if the experiment is not considered science worthy?
BTW, your website was getting a beat down on Facebook. Too bad you weren't there to defend yourself. But that's the way skeptics roll.
As bad as Big Medicine is and has been when it comes to ethics why all the "pearl clutching" now?
Ideology? power? Money?
So being bothered that large numbers of children got very sick or died because Wakefield cooked the books is "pearl clutching"?
Please do tell me about how this is all overblown because Wakefield is somehow on the side of God in watching kids die when all he has to do to stop it is come forward and admit what he did.
augustine:
No double standard; Salk's wasn't practicing in the same time period as Wakefield. Medicine has gotten a hell of a lot better about ethics in the past century. It doesn't permit what it used to.
Now, tell me why this excuses anything Wakefield did? What Salk did was an egregious shortcut, and medical science has bettered itself since then. Why should people like Wakefield be allowed to piss on all that progress by doing things that are even worse? Yes, worse. Because Wakefield committed a double sin -- first, he broke ethical trust with his patients, same crime as Salk. Second, he faked the science, which Salk did not do, and which means that all the pain and suffering he thrust upon unsuspecting patients was completely worthless. He didn't even respect them enough to be honest about what he'd taken from them.
The system does not dictate colonoscopies be performed on children not showing symptoms of GI distress. (That's also something Wakefield faked -- the reasons for their referrals.) Even then, it's avoided as much as possible because it's unpleasant and dangerous. You are mistaken about the standard practice.
And any case, even if you were honest, and doctors really were brutalizing children in this way for no reason, how would that excuse Wakefield ordering unnecessary colonoscopies? Do you think two wrongs make a right or something?
As bad as Big Medicine is and has been when it comes to ethics why all the "pearl clutching" now?
Ideology? power? Money?
So being bothered that large numbers of children got very sick or died because Wakefield cooked the books is "pearl clutching"?
Please do tell me about how this is all overblown because Wakefield is somehow on the side of God in watching kids die when all he has to do to stop it is come forward and admit what he did.
How many colonoscopies are done "just in case" or "to rule out something" by junior doctors?
You know, in the real world questions have actual answers:
Indications for Diagnostic Pediatric Colonoscopy
Diarrhea (chronic, clinically significant with weight loss, fevers, anemia)
Hematochezia/melena
Anemia (unexplained)
Abdominal pain (clinically significant)
Polyposis syndrome (diagnosis and surveillance)
Rejection of intestinal transplant
LowerâGI-tract lesions seen on imaging studies?
Failure to thrive/weight loss
It ain't easy to get a "just in case" colonoscopy if you're under 50 years old. I tried, since my family medical history on that point is terrible: Paternal and maternal grandmothers, maternal great-uncle, an uncle and an aunt, all dead of colon cancer. I was told by the doctor that he wouldn't authorize it if I was asymptomatic.
Carrykoh
"John, let me see if I have your viewpoint accurate. You don't take issue with the actual evidence in the investigation by Deer, you just feel that there's something 'fishy' about the way he obtained the information. You have no proof of any wrongdoing, but just feel something's not right. However, you don't refute the evidence, nor it's conclusions, is that your stance?"
No - where did I say that? Deer is maintaining wildly implausible or impossible things. First of all he is claiming that Wakefield and the other Royal Free experts altered documentary evidence that they never had access to in the first place (ie the GP notes), but he is also maintaining that Wakefield changed the data without the other 12 signatories noticing or complaining - while 10 of them did express their rejection of "an interpretation" in 2004 none of them said Wakefield had changed anything. In the case of one of the histopathologists last year she actually came out and said that Deer had misrepresented her evidence at the GMC.
http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c1127.full/reply#bmj_el_235073
"Also, you and Anon seem to be saying that, even if Wakers did falsify data as seems to be the case, it doesn't matter, because he did what he did because he cares so much about children and autism. Furthermore, despite falsifying data, he did it for a good cause, to bring to light the problems with vaccines. Though, here again, you have no actual proof of that either."
Where did I say anything like that?
"Is that about it?"
No.
jud
Uh, you didn't answer it at all. The question was rhetorical but since you chimed in to be a smart aleck the question was "how many" not "in what clinical situations".
Since you said "actual answers" then how many pediactric colonoscopies are performed compared to how many colonoscopy confirmed dx from the above are made? How many could be made from history and exam without following up with colonoscy. You know, just to make sure?
Jud
large numbers of death? Where? You do have evidence don't you? No you don't. Even if you, did then where is your causation? There was no increase in deaths in the U.K.
Even if someone did die, do you have anything that links it to Wakefield? An interview by the parent saying they didn't vaccinate because Jenny McCarthy said so? Anything?
Since you don't have any evidence of that either then one could also say "purely temporal" association because it's so rare. Isn't that how the skeptic plays his cards. The answer is yes.
Your rhetoric and false reasoning is noted. It's not scientific or evidence based.
I'd like to see quotes on that. All I've read says that what he claimed in the paper was different than what was stated in the documentary evidence. Not that he somehow changed the original documents.
For those familiar with the academic writing process, this is not surprising. It's not uncommon for one author, or a limited group, to be the one who provides the data. The other authors would then provide other input.
Ultimately, the entire system is honor-based: it's assumed that people will not commit deliberate fraud, and there are only the most limited checks in place to catch it if they do.
Citation, please.
@augie
Oh, joy of joys! The Great One has found me worthy to address me! I can die a most beatific death!
Your Worshipfulness is being coy with me. Why certainly, O magnificent one, the answer is both, as ethics are a development of society, and laws based on ethics must evolve as ethics change.
Mighty and all-knowing one, I would venture, in my small and limited fashion, to say that "No" is the answer to the first and "only tomorrow will tell" is the answer to the second.
Oh glorious Godwinning being, only a fool would think that laws define ethics and that an absence of laws means an absence of ethics. Since you are most certainly no fool, oh fantastical one, you must be asking rhetorically.
Such discussions ultimately belong in philosophy, talking about thoughts like Utilitarianism. One may make an argument that the ends justify the means, but such arguments cannot fit all situations. Once more, my meager self feels that you are jesting with me, O Heavenly Greatness that Defies Definition.
Thought certainly all of us maintain some vanity, I do not seek out every last mention of my name or site, nor do I find Facebook of great interest. And that one such as yourself, O Steamroller of Reason, uses it, makes it clear that an insignificant speck such as myself is not worthy to even type its name. Please forgive me, O Bountifully Merciful One, for using it even this once.
@Todd 177
As kids of Augustine's generation would say, I LOL'd.
The advanced concepts he needs to rationalize what you just wrote aren't taught until college, though. So might get some trollish responses from him for a time to come.
*applause*
Todd wins the Internet.
Scott
The point is that in the UK system the patients are referred with a letter from the GP, who retain their patient notes. It isn't surprising if the medical history taken by a consultant (Walker-Smith not Wakefield)doesn't correspond exactly: you wouldn't expect it to. But the claim that the record has altered doesn't bear examination.
As to the data in the study it was all provided to Wakefield by a large team of specialists in different areas, not by him to them. He didn't take the histories, make the neurological and psychiatric assessments, develop or assess the test results....
And what was in the paper doesn't correspond with any of the other records. THAT is the claim, not "that the record was altered." That's a massive strawman, which I can only suspect you're beating on because you can't argue with the fact that most of the data in the paper was manufactured!
Exactly. Wakefield falsified the data in his study by misrepresenting what was in the record and cherry picking patients to analyze. No one is claiming that he altered the medical records of these children.
augustine writes:
large numbers of death? Where?
Not what I said. Large numbers of kids getting very sick or dying is what I said, and what the facts are.
You do have evidence don't you? No you don't. Even if you, did then where is your causation? There was no increase in deaths in the U.K.
Well yes, of course there's plenty of evidence, but since you've shown yourself in the past unwilling or unable to grasp even elementary concepts of causation (Mark 8:18), I suppose the brief summary that follows would be in your case "pearls before swine" (Matthew 7:6) rather than "bread upon the waters" (Ecclesiastes 11:1). (For example, augustine either refused to admit or was unable to understand that the HPV vaccine helps prevent cervical cancer, though cervical cancer does not occur absent HPV infection.)
Nevertheless, for anyone with eyes to see (Matthew 13:16), the facts are that the uptake of MMR, but not other vaccines, decreased tremendously in the UK in the years following Wakefield's original publication, followed by a corresponding tremendous increase in incidence of measles and mumps (re measles, from fewer than 100 cases per year to thousands per year). The overwhelming majority of cases, over 90%, were in unvaccinated people. Two deaths occurred, one in 2006 and one in 2008, the first UK fatalities from measles since 1992.
Complications from measles are relatively common, as high as 10% of cases. Among the more common complications is pneumonia.
So - fall-off in uptake in the UK of the specific vaccine Wakefield criticized, in contrast to other vaccines; corresponding radical increase in diseases for which that vaccine confers immunity, overwhelmingly occurring in the unvaccinated population; two deaths, after more than a decade of no deaths; and a tremendously high complication rate, including pneumonia as one of the common complications.
No, I doubt whether Brian Deer has has the knowledge or objectivity to interpret the data, and we are getting his version. For example, his failure to record that child one's hearing difficulties at 9 months coincided with an ear infection and ws unlikely to be an early marker for autism:
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full/reply#bmj_el_247730
I am waiting for someone like Deer or the BMJ editorial team to come back to me on this. It isn't and isolated point but it is a simple one to illustrate.
John Stone (#180) states:
I believe it has been noted repeatedly that Wakefield didn't alter the patient records. However, it remains apparent - and Mr. Stone appears to concede - that the pertinent facts in the medical histories of many of the "Wakefield 12" do not reflect what either their parents recall or what other physicians recorded in their medical files.
In that case, how can we account for the discrepancies?
Since the medical records - which are written at the time - are not susceptible to recall bias, we can assume that they contain the correct time-line. That leaves only three options:
[1] The parents misrepresented their children's medical history (deliberately or through error).
[2] The medical histories taken by Dr. Wakefield's research team were faulty through poor interviewing and/or errors in transcription.
[3] The medical histories taken by Dr. Wakefield's research team were deliberately "skewed", "spun" or otherwise altered to better fit Dr. Wakefield's hypothesis.
No matter which one you choose, Dr. Wakefield's 1998 research paper - and anything that relies on its findings - is hopelessly compromised. In short, it's worthless and misleading.
Now, much has been made of how Mr. Deer obtained his information and how the parents of the "Wakefield 12" don't like him, don't trust him, etc. Yet, some of them - according to Mr. Deer's article - told him that the details of their children's medical history in the 1998 Lancet paper were in error. Since none of them have come forth to claim that they were wrongly quoted, I think we have to assume - for now, at least - that the statements attributed to them in Mr. Deer's article are correct.
Then we have the issue of "pruning" the sample set in order to get a more legally relevant answer. This is harder to "spin" in a way that makes Dr. Wakefield innocent of fraud. As they say in the Midwest, this wasn't Dr. Wakefield's first rodeo - he knew how research is supposed to be done and tossing out "inconvenient" data points isn't it.
In the end, we're left with what the editors of BMJ concluded: undisclosed conflicts of interest, ethical violations and scientific fraud.
I understand why some people can't let go of Dr. Wakefield yet (see: "Good money after bad"), but it still doesn't make his actions correct or even excusable.
Prometheus
I looked at your reference and can find no indication that Deer "misrepresented" Davies' evidence about histopathology. She states that Deer "misrepresented " her involvement in the project. He did make an error in stating that Davies was the "lead pathologist" for the project. She was closely involved, and one of the study's authors, so it's a rather piddly error. That's the only error I can find.
The bulk of her letter has nothing to do with Deer having "misrepresented her evidence at the GMC". It's her defense of her role in interpreting the biopsies. I happen to disagree with a lot of what she says (for the record, I am a practicing surgical pathologist).
Misrepresentation? Take a look at the sentence I have blockquoted.
I'm still waiting for any of the antivaxers who are hyperventilating about Brian Deer's reporting to say something along the lines of "Deer's reporting is incorrect because (insert facts here), and that proves the charges against Wakefield are false".
The antivaxers' silence on this score reinforces the conclusion that attacks on Deer are a smokescreen aimed at excusing fraudulent and unethical behavior by Andrew Wakefield.
Darned if this doesn't fit the classic antivaxer pattern. When you can't dispute the evidence, get vitriolically personal and rain down the insults and phony accusations - on Brian Deer, Dr. Paul Offit or anyone else effective at delivering a message you can't tolerate anyone hearing.
"I believe it has been noted repeatedly that Wakefield didn't alter the patient records. However, it remains apparent - and Mr. Stone appears to concede - that the pertinent facts in the medical histories of many of the "Wakefield 12" do not reflect what either their parents recall or what other physicians recorded in their medical files."
I have no idea where I conceded any such thing. It should be noted that Brian Deer has made great play over the views of the father of patient 11 but he has not identified himself, nor did he give evidence to the GMC hearing. We know that two years ago the parents of ten of the children (those that could be located) signed or supported a letter in support of the doctors at the GMC. It is doubtful that many of them consider Mr Deer to be their friend or are glad that he obtained, by whatever means, confidential medical and legal material about their children. Only one gave evidence GMC mistakenly believing that she had been invited to give evidence for the defence.
As I have previously commented it is not surprising that the clinical histories obtained do not always exactly tally with records that they never referenced, nor does it follow that those records are always right. It may also be in different hands than Deer's they can often be reconciled.
It is I think a nightmare scenario that your children's medical records and legal documents could end up in the hands of an investigative journalist, without any medical expertise, who then interprets them according to his own jaundiced and professionally interested views. We recall that Deer was hired by a Sunday Times editor to find something "big" on "MMR", by which I resume he meant Wakefield:
http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c672.full
Only two days ago he was proposing this as model for further investigations. Good heavens, Orac and Prometheus could be next!
CORRECTED
"I believe it has been noted repeatedly that Wakefield didn't alter the patient records. However, it remains apparent - and Mr. Stone appears to concede - that the pertinent facts in the medical histories of many of the "Wakefield 12" do not reflect what either their parents recall or what other physicians recorded in their medical files."
I have no idea where I conceded any such thing. It should be noted that Brian Deer has made great play over the views of the father of patient 11 but he has not identified himself, nor did he give evidence to the GMC hearing. We know that two years ago the parents of ten of the children (those that could be located) signed or supported a letter in support of the doctors at the GMC. It is doubtful that many of them consider Mr Deer to be their friend or are glad that he obtained, by whatever means, confidential medical and legal material about their children. Only one gave evidence before the GMC mistakenly believing that she had been invited to give evidence for the defence.
As I have previously commented it is not surprising that the clinical histories obtained do not always exactly tally with records that they never referenced, nor does it follow that those records are always right. It may also be in different hands than Deer's they can often be reconciled.
It is I think a nightmare scenario that your children's medical records and legal documents could end up in the hands of an investigative journalist, without any medical expertise, who then interprets them according to his own jaundiced and professionally interested views. We recall that Deer was hired by a Sunday Times editor to find something "big" on "MMR", by which I assume he meant Wakefield:
http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c672.full
Only two days ago he was proposing this as model for further investigations. Good heavens, Orac and Prometheus could be next!
@Jud
Well, your statement is misleading. It implies large numbers of sick kids AND large numbers of dead. I think you know this and misled on purpose. That's dishonest. And you're trying to make charges based on dishonesty and factually incorrect statements.
And then you don't clarify until challenged to do so...
Do you consider this "large numbers of kids"?
http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733835814
Looking at these statistics I see no indication of the so called "wakefield" effect.
Both deaths were in immune compromised. The 2006 child would have been around 5 years old when the Lancet paper came out. Well past his scheduled vaccines. The decision to vaccinate or not would have already been made.
Do you have a citation. The one above does not indicate "tremendous".
Regarding HPV vaccine, I understand the theory perfectly well. What you haven't provided, like with the measles/wakefield charge, is actual evidence. Show me the peer-reviewed paper that shows an ACTUAL decline in cervical cancer because of the vaccine. That's called EVIDENCE. You should know the difference. Apparently you don't.
@John Stone:
Wait, so if Wakefield's paper and the medical records disagree, then maybe Wakefield's paper is right and the records are wrong? How could that happen? If the records are wrong, then how did Wakefield get access to the correct information?
I still see John Stone is flogging his dead horse and talking around the fact that considering that the feature was published in a country with the most oppressive libel laws, the parents and Wakefield don't even have a leg to stand on even under those circumstances. I guess Mr. Deer, the Sunday Times and BMJ must be rather confident in their validation of Mr. Deer's work.
"I still see John Stone is flogging his dead horse and talking around the fact that considering that the feature was published in a country with the most oppressive libel laws, the parents and Wakefield don't even have a leg to stand on even under those circumstances. I guess Mr. Deer, the Sunday Times and BMJ must be rather confident in their validation of Mr. Deer's work."
But actually, these allegations have not repeated widely in the British media - nor were they when they were first made in 2009 (outside Times newspapers). This time (since the allegations were in the BMJ not the Sunday Times) there was a comment piece by Deer in the ST in which again the allegations were not repeated. There was a brief report in the Telegraph but the rest of the British media, including the BBC left it quite alone. So, I don't think there is widespread confidence in the veracity.
@John Stone:
Are you saying that a lot of news outlets aren't republishing the article for fear of being sued for libel? Or that Brian Deer believes he could successfully be sued for libel over his article, yet also believes he can protect himself from such a suit by only publishing it in a few places? Both?
Also, the British Medical Journal published Deer's article, and published an editorial calling Wakefield's research a fraud. Why would they do so if they weren't sure that their assertions were libel proof? Are they simply too small-time for Wakefield to bother suing them?
"Are you saying that a lot of news outlets aren't republishing the article for fear of being sued for libel?"
Or are legally sceptical of something which cannot be substantiated for reasons I have pointed out.
"Also, the British Medical Journal published Deer's article, and published an editorial calling Wakefield's research a fraud. Why would they do so if they weren't sure that their assertions were libel proof? Are they simply too small-time for Wakefield to bother suing them?"
I think they are foolish irrespective of whether anyone sues.
@John Stone:
As far as I can tell, according to your reasoning, no accusation of clinical research fraud can ever be substantiated, since medical records can't be assumed to be accurate.
@John Stone
Perhaps you may care to answer my question here, in a more informal environment, which you've studiously ignored in the BMJ: (After all, as you're always accusing others of ignoring your own Rapid Responses, you'll obviously be keen to clear this one up.)
Which part of Mr Deer's article do you allege to be false?
By "false" I mean "factually untrue", or "outright lies", as opposed to some vague hand-waving and waffling about Mr Deer not having the right to see the information, or other such diversions (such as trying to smear me personally as an unreliable participant in such a discussion). Which bits are lies - and when will Mr Wakefield be taking steps to bring legal proceedings to defend his reputation against said falsehoods?
So, again John - and I'm sure you're keen to clear this up;
Which bits of Mr Deer's article are lies?
Kind regards,
Becky
"Which part of Mr Deer's article do you allege to be false?"
He can't tell you because he doesn't read things properly.
He's a bleeding idiot!
Just to say that I
Only want to make it clear that
He is
Not the
Sharpest
Tool in the box and,
Of course, he'd say that I was
Not right; but I don't care... he's just
Egregiously stupid.
I can't imagine what he
Sees in Andy Wakefield's work...
Aaaaaaanyway....
To hell with him
Out of the house with him
Totally unable to read anything properly
And absolutely useless as an editor; and
Lazy, to boot...
Tell me, man
What
Art
Thou?
David N Andrews
If I may say so you sound a little overwrought, which would be surprising unless I had hit home.
Incidentally, is the Nick Andrews that accompanied you on bass in your pop-video by any chance the Health Protection Agency epidemiologist who has co-authored dozens of related studies?
http://www.autismstreet.org/weblog/?p=74
It's possible that's Deer's mistake. On the other hand, the only source of the claim about the ear infection, if I'm not mistaken, is Wakefield, correct? Well, Wakefield's word is about the lowest form of evidence there is, in my view. I'd like to have a better idea of what the records say exactly.
Deer's claim was: "one of the mother's concerns was that he could not hear properly." This doesn't sound like something the mother necessarily attributed to an ear infection.
Joseph
The point was in Wakefield's PCC complaint in March 2009, and in his book 'Callous Disregard' p.191. If Wakefield was wrong on this point Deer has had nearly two years to consider it: it would have been even stronger evidence of Wakefield's perfidy, but Deer doesn't mention it. Indeed, it may very well have been a mistake by Deer when he first published the claim in the Sunday Times in February 2009 but it is hard to see how it could be so now two years later when it has been pointed out many times. He has also had two days to respond to my post in BMJ Rapid Responses and has so far not done so. The longer it goes on the worse it gets.
Hmm....JS claims that the point was in Wakers' PCC complaint in 2009. I don't trust ANYTHING Wakers says in Callous Disregard. A liar can lie better in his own book. OK. AND what is the status of that PCC complaint? Or, (like Wakers' lawsuit against Brian Deer which he dropped and ended up having to pay costs) did it quietly disappear because Wakers didn't want more scrutiny of the data?
Given that the UK has some pretty draconian libel laws, if Wakers et.al wanted to sue for libel, the BMJ and Brian Deer would have some major problems. Strange that we haven't heard anything about a libel suit. Why do you think that is, John? Maybe because Wakers doesn't have a snowball's chance of winning?
Well, lets see if BMJ, or Brian Deer or Rebecca Fisher (if they are not one and the same) can respond.
What a load of bollocks Stone. The Times has deep pockets and have blithely announced they have funded Mr. Deer's investigation. Your speculation that other outlets haven't run with it because of the story's veracity is just that. Besides, the Guardian is carrying the story, or did you conveniently miss that too?
And this, boys and girls, is an example of the incoherent ravings of a Complete Fucking Idiot. Proof that the anti-vaxxers are completely uninhibited by the constraints of reality. Cue the tone trolls.
Hey! It's the Sullivan is Bonnie Offit gambit! Rebecca is Brian Deer OR the BMJ? How can a person be a journal? John Stone has just proven that he makes NO sense whatsoever, nor does he know what a medical journal is.
And Militant Agnostic pulls out a brilliant one:
" 'Well, lets see if BMJ, or Brian Deer or Rebecca Fisher (if they are not one and the same) can respond.'
And this, boys and girls, is an example of the incoherent ravings of a Complete Fucking Idiot. Proof that the anti-vaxxers are completely uninhibited by the constraints of reality. Cue the tone trolls."
Brilliant pick-up, MA.
I've had a run-in with that Stone pillock over at BMJ... he's claiming things about what I wrote that I never fucking said!
I think he needs to go back to his doctor and ask for those nice pills that keep his head on the rational side of the borderland leading to psychosis. What a fucking tosser.
Can you âhear the silenceâ from your Messiah Deer, rings a bell does it not?Simply, Mr Stone should have had a reply by now surely , unless of course Mr Stone has hit the nail on the head yet again, struck it home to Deer worshipers ,that DEERS THE FRAUD everyone in the Autism community knows he is⦠That aside simply a small dose of denial and a trembling but sort of stiff upper lip will see you Deer worshipers through at the end of the day.
One Queer Fish: WTF?
This is a joke, right?
According to the timeline in Part 2 of Deer's report:
No, sadly, he's serious. Stone sees conspiracy wherever he looks.
Dumbass, Mr. Deer has responded here, on several RI posts and on Leftbrain/Rightbrain. We are perfectly capable of evaluating Mr. Deer's investigation for ourselves and agree with him. This in stark contrast to the average anti-vaxx or vaccine-autism twoo believer who has to be spoon-fed pabulum from their fearless, not-scientist leaders.
"Deer worshipers"? His latest reports were done for the BMJ, which also put out an editorial calling Wakefield's research fraudulent. Does that mean we're also BMJ worshipers?
Also, you act as if a single error on Deer's part means that everything he's said is a lie.
Strange boorish attitude on a site that seems to take pleasure in the suffering of children thanks to the Fraud Deer has spun. His Fraud is in complete contrast to the video /letter below from the parents of the Lancet 12 ..Simply a fraud spun at the epicentre by Deer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHrgYxqcU0w&feature=autofb
Oh but of course, the parents adore him so he can't possibly be lying to them and the world, for that matter. It's like a really warped Stockholm Syndrome.
Really dumbass, some credulous parents' adulation for the finkface doesn't counter the fraud against them he perpetuated, and continues to do so.
OQF, r...i...g...h...t, a mother who stood to benefit from a lawsuit reading a letter is real evidence. Not.
Chris shoot the messenger ,just about right on this site going on the little I have read Offit.. Why not investigate Brian Deer and the pharma ties of his newspaper bosses? Now any impartial ,unbiased, non pharma, normal inquisitive sane mind would do that ,wouldnât they now. Quite simply your Messiah Deer could answer Mr Stones questions but he chooses not to ,of course nothing to hide Mr Deer have we .I remember Deer disclosed on lbrb that he had the childrenâs medical files kicking around in his apartment for a couple of weeks? Now is his name Brian Lawrence or Brian Liar would the real Brian please stand up??
Heres the parents Part 2 Deer worshipers ENJOY!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J80_Xa9ZU24&feature=related
Do not presume to speak for me.
@One Queer Fish:
I don't see anyone here taking pleasure in the suffering of any children.
How has anything deer published lead to children suffering? By counteracting the downturn in MMR usage?
Also, it's not like the only source of anti-Wakefield information is Wakefield. There's also the GMC and the BMJ. Which isn't to say that the GMC and BMJ are infallible, they every word undoubtedly correct, but they're two groups of medical professionals who agree with Deer. So discrediting Deer isn't going to rehabilitate Wakefield, unless you can also prove that Deer tricked the GMC and BMJ into turning against Wakefield.
But is was only a paper about twelve case studies that did not prove anything to with either version of the MMR that the children received. Why does it still cause such furor?
Why does it even matter to you, OQF?
The GMC and the British Medical Journal are hardly considered âindependentâ bodies of science and by independent I mean not tied to pharmaceutical financial interests and doctors who promote drugs and in this case vaccines.
Deerâs adventures in Phantasy land would be more apt for all the diatribes he has written. If Deer hadnât spun the lies he spun specialist doctors at the top end of gastroenterology could have got on and treated the Autistic children instead of attending kangaroo sham trials ,based on your Messiah Deerâs lies. â¦It seems to me that your all being drawn into Messiah Deers Phantasy land ,dangerous Times.. but even the dreamers have to get real one day guysâ¦Brian Lawrence/ Deer/Liar is at the epicentre spinning for all he is worth.Look outside Phantasy land newspapers, associates of Deer, who at one time would have published his lies with haste are not they are all gradually stepping away and telling Deer he is great and doing a great job such as Golden Ache in the Guardian today ,so that when the bubble bursts Deers associates have stepped aside and Deer being at the centre of it all cops it all Pharma says nothing to do with us and carry on peddling death in vaccines â¦now thatâs the real world..
@One Queer Fish:
Like, say, that the PCR tests Wakefield did to test for the measles virus were hopelessly flawed? I suppose that's a lie, and the PCR tests were perfectly fine?
Also, do you have any evidence to back up your claim that gastroenterologists were lining up to treat Wakefield 12, but changed their minds because of Deer?
What exactly would this bursting bubble look like? Deer losing a libel lawsuit? Wakefield already tried suing Deer for libel, but then dropped the suit and ended up paying for Deer's legal fees.
Also, "cops it all"? Are you saying that Deer would fall on his sword to protect his Pharma Overlords? Why would he do that, rather than selling them out?
Hmmm. What's your opinion on the vaccination campaign against smallpox? Maybe smallpox is still around, merely having been relabled as chicken-pox/monkey-pox? And maybe paralytic polio was caused by DDT/pesticides rather than the virus?
Re: # 223 I see another vaccine-autism crank has gone unhinged. Evidence-free, check; unintelligible, inchoate diatribe, check. Where ever will they all go now?
IT DOESNT TAKE A BRAIN SURGEON TO FIGURE IT OUT.KNOWLEDGE IS YOUR BEST FRIEND. MY SON IS ONE OF THE AUTISM HEARING CHILDREN . I RECEIVED RHOGAM SHOT IN MY FIRST TRIMESTER. VACCINATIONS, LETHAL TOXINS INCREASE 500 PERCENT DONT QUOTE ME AUTISM INCREASES BY 1000 PERCENT. all THEY CARE ABOUT IS THE BOTTOM LINE. cORRUPT CONSPIRACY, MANSLAUGHER INVOLVED B RING THEM NOT TO JUSTICE ,TO PRISON NO PAROL AND WORSE. It Will all come out, Andrew will be ok
Ah, yes, you have made it all clear Ms. Silverio. ALL CAPS is a wonderful substitute for evidence.
Quoting Monica Silverio:
I wonder why she doesn't want us to quote her? Surely information so important that it must be screamed out in ALL CAPS should be spread about more widely?
All-One or None! One science for all Humanity. Offit's Manual of Discipline based on Singer's Moral ABC, the Army of principals of Epidemiology-Science Unites the Human Race as discovered in 1955 by Salk in Watson-Crick double helix. English by blogger Orac. All-One
I'm guessing that "don't quote me" is shorthand (extremely short) for "don't quote at me those studies claiming to find no link between vaccines and autism".
The anti-McElwaine, perhaps?
"UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS."
Ah, the halcyon days of Usenet, when there was a different class of net kook, with a certain degree of originality which the modern ones largely lack.
"If I may say so you sound a little overwrought, which would be surprising unless I had hit home."
You're joking,right?
Explaining this one to John Stone is likely to take ages. Not gonnae bother.
"Incidentally, is the Nick Andrews that accompanied you on bass in your pop-video by any chance the Health Protection Agency epidemiologist who has co-authored dozens of related studies?"
Um... are you sure you really want to ask that question? I mean... really?
Cough!!lbrb medical files in Deers apartment??l-a-t-e-r WHat was it Deer said he was supervised was that in his"apartment as well??
Simply you need to look outside Phantasy land that Deluded Deer has got you all involved in.
A few of the organisations who support Dr Wakefield
Age of Autism
Autism Action Network
Autism Media Channel
Autism One
Autism File Global
Autism Research Institute
Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law and Advocacy
Generation Rescue
National Autism Association
Schafer Autism Report
TACA-Talk About Curing Autism
The Autism Trust USA/UK
The Coalition for SafeMinds
Unlocking Autism
The following peer-reviewed papers support Dr. Wakefield's original findings:
Furlano R, Anthony A, Day R, Brown A, Mc Garvey L, Thomson M, et al. "Colonic CD8 and T cell filtration with epithelial damage in children with autism." J Pediatr 2001;138:366-72.
Sabra S, Bellanti JA, Colon AR. "Ileal lymphoid hyperplasia, non-specific colitis and pervasive developmental disorder in children". The Lancet 1998;352:234-5.
Torrente F., Machado N., Perez-Machado M., Furlano R., Thomson M., Davies S., Wakefield AJ, Walker-Smith JA, Murch SH. "Enteropathy with T cell infiltration and epithelial IgG deposition in autism." Molecular Psychiatry. 2002;7:375-382.
Wakefield AJ, Anthony A, Murch SH, Thomson M, Montgomery SM, Davies S, Walker-Smith JA. "Enterocolitis in children with developmental disorder." American Journal of Gastroenterology 2000;95:2285-2295.
Ashwood P, Anthony A, Pellicer AA, Torrente F, Wakefield AJ. "Intestinal lymphocyte populations in children with regressive autism: evidence for extensive mucosal immunopathology." Journal of Clinical Immunology, 2003;23:504-517.
The following peer-reviewed papers replicate Dr. Wakefield's original findings:
Gonzalez, L. et al., "Endoscopic and Histological Characteristics of the Digestive Mucosa in Autistic Children with gastro-Intestinal Symptoms". Arch Venez Pueric Pediatr, 2005;69:19-25.
Balzola, F., et al., "Panenteric IBD-like disease in a patient with regressive autism shown for the first time by wireless capsule enteroscopy: Another piece in the jig-saw of the gut-brain syndrome?" American Journal of Gastroenterology, 2005. 100(4): p. 979- 981.
Balzola F et al . "Autistic enterocolitis: confirmation of a new inflammatory bowel disease in an Italian cohort of patients." Gastroenterology 2005;128(Suppl. 2);A-303.
These are the articles on treatment of gastrointestinal symptoms in autistic children:
Buie T, et al. Pediatrics. 2010 Jan;125 Suppl 1:S19-29. Recommendations for evaluation and treatment of common gastrointestinal problems in children with ASDs.
Buie T, et al. Pediatrics. 2010 Jan;125 Suppl 1:S1-18. Evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of gastrointestinal disorders in individuals with ASDs: a consensus report.
augustine writes:
Do you have a citation [for tremendous increase in measles incidence recently in the UK]. The one above does not indicate "tremendous".
http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/…
Regarding HPV vaccine, I understand the theory perfectly well. What you haven't provided, like with the measles/wakefield charge, is actual evidence. Show me the peer-reviewed paper that shows an ACTUAL decline in cervical cancer because of the vaccine. That's called EVIDENCE. You should know the difference. Apparently you don't.
You may think you understand the theory perfectly well, but in fact you don't. This is what I mean when I say you either do not or refuse to comprehend causation.
Since HPV infection is a necessary cause of cervical cancer (no infection, no cancer), one doesn't need "evidence" (by which I assume you mean statistical data) to show that preventing HPV infection will prevent cervical cancer, any more than one would need statistical studies to show that preventing falls off cliffs prevents serious injury or death, if one knows how gravity works. Once you've shown that cervical cancer doesn't occur in the absence of HPV infection (this was done by research in the late 1990s), go have a beer - you're done.
All that's left to show in that case (yes, by statistical data) is (1) The vaccine is effective in preventing infection, and (2) the vaccine is "safe," i.e., any side effects are acceptably rare and/or not serious. By law in the U.S. this must be done to the FDA's satisfaction before the vaccine can be offered to the public, so the studies do exist. But I'm not going to spend time tracking down safety and effectiveness data for the HPV vaccine right now. Maybe some other time if I feel like it. Meanwhile, mull over the nature of causation and how that affects the desirability/appropriateness of statistical studies as a method of proof.
Do you even understand what 'support' and 'replication' mean in the context you are using it? None of those do either, but feel free to tell me how they do. Even just one.
@OQF
I notice you listed a couple studies by T. Buie. Guess what, he does not support Wakefield's conclusions:
Hornig, M., Briese, T., Buie, T., Baumann, M.L., Lauwers, G., Siemetzki, U., et al. (2008). Lack of association between measles virus vaccine and autism with enteropathy: A case control study. Public Library of Science ONE, 3(9), e3140.
I've notified him that you are using his name to try to support Mr. Wakefield.
Am I safe in assuming that OQF employed the standard anti-vax MO of doing a Medscape search on the vaccination in question and the condition in question (in this case measles vaccine & autism or enteropathy) and then grabbing all the papers containing those keywords without actually determining whether those papers support the anti-vax case, contradict it or are completely irrelevant.
This leaves 3 possibilities:
1. The anti-vaxxer is aware that the cited papers do not support their claim and they are lying and hoping no-one checks to see if the papers support the claim.
2. The anti-vaxxer has read the abstracts and they are just stupid and believes the papers support the claim.
3. The anti-vaxxer did not examine the papers, but because they are so fanatical that they assume that any paper containing the keywords must support their claim.
So One Queer Fish - which category are you in?
@Militant Agnostic
Looks like OQF just did a copy-paste from AoA nonsense.
"MY SON IS ONE OF THE AUTISM HEARING CHILDREN"
"I RECEIVED RHOGAM SHOT IN MY FIRST TRIMESTER."
Oh, so now there is another cause to blame, I guess.
However, this post highlights a bizarre problem: what does this have to do with Wakefield?
As far as I know, Wakefield has never done anything (honestly or not) to examine the relationship between "rhogam" and autism. I don't know if anyone has, but then again, this is the first time I have ever heard anyone suggest that the relationship exists.
So the question is, if getting a rhogam shot during pregnancy is what caused the child's autism, then why in the blazes would anyone care that Wakefield is being taken down? If you believe that rhogam causes autism, then why any need to defend Wakefield, who actually is blaming something else?
Oh, right. You think that because you perceive Wakefield to be anti-vaccine, that he helps your cause. In fact, no he doesn't. If Wakefield's deceit hadn't caused so many people to waste time searching a non-existent effect, perhaps those resources could have been better served investigating other potential causes?
I don't know if rhogam can cause autism (I have my doubts, but that doesn't matter), but I do know that because of Andy Wakefield, too many people have wasted too much time chasing a clear dead end.
If I had a hypothesized cause of autism, I would be royally pissed at the guy for wasting everyone's time, and be anything but a defender.
Then again, even without my own hypothesis, I do find his actions pretty disgusting.
Great answers Nazarenes, and routes to go down keep me busy a while takes the focus of Messiah Deer while I get my answers but then its not fun ,I prefer annoying you lot on here. ..Todd youâre the fastest with 90 mins to guess that I copied from AOA but you were wrong, it woz Safeminds Thank Deer /God I wasnât waiting for you to find a defibrillator as you would have come back with a chainsaw 90mins laterâ¦keep taking the speedâ¦.you need it.
Simply all I would like is an answer to Mr Stones questions.â He has also had two days to respond to my post in BMJ Rapid Responses and has so far not done so. The longer it goes on the worse it getsâ.
And from me , was Mr Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in his âapartment â which he claimed on lbrb?
(wont be long until we all start saying thank Deer instead of God?? for you lot on here its happened alreadyâ¦)
@One Queer Fish:
Yeeaaaaaah, you're gonna have to expand on that a little.
So, according to your logic, "Brian Deer ignores John Stone" equals "everything Brian Deer said about Wakefield are lies".
*tilts head one way*
*tilts head the other*
Okay, the "defibrillator" implies that the shock of reading what you quoted gave us heart attacks, or even made our hearts stop, but what do chainsaws have to do with anything?
@Pablo: "As far as I know, Wakefield has never done anything (honestly or not) to examine the relationship between "rhogam" and autism. I don't know if anyone has, but then again, this is the first time I have ever heard anyone suggest that the relationship exists."
Yes, it's been done.
PMID: 18772000, PMID: 18771966, PMID: 18554566, PMID: 18404135, PMID: 18074377, PMID: 17674242, PMID: 17508426, PMID: 1745456) I was able to download and read some of the papers last year, but I they're saved on a different computer and off the top of my head I don't remember which I read.
Note the title of PMID: 17508426 Lack of association between Rh status, Rh immune globulin in pregnancy and autism.
Surprise surprise the only ones to find a link are the Geiers (PMID: 18404135, PMID: 17674242, PMID: 1745456)
Anecdotally, I've have lots and lots of Rhogam, including just before my older child was conceived, but neither of my children have autism.
Does it matter where you cribbed your list from? No matter where you found the list, you copied it without checking to see if it actually supported your conclusions.
@Antaeus: no, it doesn't really matter where he cribbed the list from; they all use the same list anyway. It's been deconstructed more than once, on more than 1 board. It doesn't matter if the studies support the issue or not. They sound all medical and important, so they must support Wakers since Wakers is the only one who ever studied this issue. Ammirite?
As to Brian Deer and the "records in his apartment" I would love a link to where he said that, because I don't recall reading that on LBRB anywhere. Besides, as a Brit, he wouldn't have said apartment.
OQF @240
Still can't provide any explanation for how that Gish Gallup supports/replicates Wakefield's 'work'? Why am I not surprised. Next time, perhaps verify your sources before jumping the gate. Just a little suggestion.
Simple,Messiah Deer (to you lot in Phantasmal Pharma Land) does use the word apartment on lbrb just, Google it and you will see. Messiah Deer bragged that he had the medical notes for months in his âapartmentâ. Messiah Deer bragging of the medical files in his âapartmentâ is well documented throughout the web I have a copy and so do many others before it was removed. Quite simply and hardly remarkable, the same scenario happened to the page on Deerâs site with the names,I.D numbers of the Lancet 12 kids, which was removed for years but now can be accessed?? I find the portrayal by you lot on here, of autism, autism parents/ children, pro autism bloggers on here ,anyone who supports autism in anyway at all ,Dr Wakefield et-al of character that bears absolutely no relation whatever to the reality - in fact, diametrically opposite. It is intriguing as to how Messsiah Deer and all you worshipers of Messiah Deer, manage to blank this out of your minds(giving credit you have one which is very questionable). Simply. anyone who met AW would rapidly form the impression within a half-hour, if not just minutes, that he is a good person, who really had the children's interests at heart and had has nothing to hide.
Without going into specifics, it's also interesting as to the impression you'd form after half an hour with Messiah Deer link to a phew
http://redrockslightbox.blogspot.com/search/label/Dear%20o%20Deer
Rhogam
http://www.whale.to/a/rhogam.html
Science Mom keep holding your breath Ill get Todd to get you the Oxygen bottle should be about 90 minutes..
P.S. great attempts at diversion
"anyone who met AW would rapidly form the impression within a half-hour, if not just minutes, that he is a good person, who really had the children's interests at heart and had has nothing to hide."
That would make him a perfect conman, if he were to take it up.
It's no suprise to find that someone accused of getting away with fraud for a long time may be the sort of person that could have gotten away with fraud for a long time.
Scopie's Law again! Remember everyone, that site believes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is both real and not about alien lizards, and says dolphins can fly.
Dedj is making me think of that Doctor Who episode where Romana comments the con man seemed so sincere, and the Doctor points out if he wasn't, he wouldn't be so good at his job.
@ Dedj
"It's no suprise to find that someone accused of getting away with fraud for a long time may be the sort of person that could have gotten away with fraud for a long time."
Is that Messiah Deer you refer to? I seen a post in the BMJ as follows simply explains the fraud Deer is.....
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full/reply#bmj_el_247450
Is there a misunderstanding in the media of the conflicting duties of a medico-legal expert?
Gerry Ferguson, Solicitor
Withy King, Solicitors, 5/6 Nothumberland Buildings, Bath BA1 2JE
As a solicitor practising in the field of clinical negligence, acting for claimants, I am amazed at the pejorative terminology used by Brian Deer and endorsed by the BMJ in relation to the investigation of potential clinical negligence claims. I think this attack on the integrity of solicitors acting in this difficult field is one-eyed and sensationalist and has a tabloid flavour that does not sit well with the BMJ's usual editorial stance.
To describe claimant solicitors as 'scheming businesses' involved in a 'scam' is pathetic.
The way Brian Deer presents the 'facts' is that he implies that the solicitors had a pre-conceived idea that they wanted to mount a multi- party action against a pharmaceutical company and went around trawling for clients to fulfil a nefarious and fraudulent plan.
There was nothing 'extraordinary' about the hourly rate paid to the expert, even in 1998.
I do not know how Brian Deer thinks that solicitors who are acting for more than one client with a common complaint should obtain medical evidence. The parents had not gone to the Royal Free 'precisely to blame MMR, wanting (an expert) to help their children and their claims'. Like most clients, they had a theory about how their child's condition had been adversely affected and so they went to an independent expert in an appropriate field seeking an objective assessment to see if there was a link, because they all felt that the changes in their children's behavioural changes were associated in time with the MMR vaccination.
As I understand it, Dr Wakefield found some similarities between some of the children's symptoms and he and others reasonably suggested in the Lancet paper that the possible association required further research. The situation then got completely out of hand due to a media storm and the backlash from the pharmaceutical company's adherents and the Department of Health, who might reasonably be presumed to be motivated by a threatened loss of profit on the one hand and fear that herd immunity within an approved vaccination programme would be damaged on the other.
There was never any assertion (that I have seen) that the cases represented 'a snapshot from a large hospital's caseload'. It seems some people (possibly unfamiliar with the medical litigation process) may have simply assumed this.
From a potential litigation perspective it would have been unwise for Dr Wakefield to have alluded in print to the fact that there was a possible court action being contemplated, because of considerations of legal professional privilege and his instructing solicitors' natural caution in not wishing to 'jump the gun' by disclosing preliminary expert evidence (that had not been finalised for disclosure) in the public domain, thereby handing a tactical advantage to potential defendants in what is (whether you agree with it or not) an adversarial, not inquisitorial, court process.
Again, as I understand it, Dr Wakefield was quite genuinely concerned by his findings and thought they should be urgently flagged up for wider investigation. I cannot see that this stance was anything more than the natural reaction of any concerned clinician who thought there might be a link.
Because his medico-legal reports were privileged, any published data in The Lancet would of necessity have to be 'reviewed and changed' to avoid any breaches of the clinician's duty of confidentiality to the instructing solicitors, child clients and their litigation friends. There is nothing sinister in such a process, simply because someone writing with an agenda terms it 'misreporting'.
You have to bear in mind the GMC tribunal themselves were by no means disinterested parties and, to my mind as a claimant lawyer, I find Mr Deer's assault on the evidence gathering process in litigation ill- informed. I suspect Dr Wakefield was 'caught between a rock and a hard place'. If he kept quiet about the possible link until the end of any possible multi-party litigation years later then, if there was a link, hundreds or even thousands of children might be unnecessarily harmed and he would then be blamed by everyone, no doubt including the media, for keeping his theory of the possible association to himself.
If he openly set out in detail the identities of the patients and the circumstances of his instruction there was a serious risk he would, at a stroke, destroy the viability of any possible multi-party action, because the potential defendants would inevitably be alerted to the thrust of the investigation and significantly greater resources than those available to a 'Norfolk high street solicitor' would be marshalled by the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical multi-national concerned.
The casual way in which some medical academic papers are co-authored is an argument for another day.
It is human nature to seek to distance oneself from an embarrassing error and the co-authors of the paper no doubt wished that they had been more sceptical of the original paper's premise, but they only recanted under immense pressure from the medical establishment, government and media. How many professionals could seriously assert that they would stand up to such overwhelming public pressure?
To suggest that if a solicitor's firm sends a series of clients to an expert's hospital in a short timescale there is 'something fishy' is unworthy of a mature journalist. For reasons of economies of scale and limited funding it makes sense to try and get the expert to see such clients in a block. The exigencies of limited litigation public funding dictate that solicitors obviously try and carry out their investigations cost-effectively.
It really seems to me that (despite all the vicious attacks on Dr Wakefield's ethics) all that happened here was that 'a man with a hammer' assumed that every child with a bowel lesion, developmental disorder and a recent history of MMR vaccination was possibly 'a nail'.
He may have been naive, but the way in which he has been hounded by the media and pilloried by the GMC has simply added another layer of injustice to an already difficult area of law.
I am afraid the way in which Dr Wakefield and his colleagues have been treated might as well have been deliberately designed to discourage clinicians with medico-legal practices from advising potential claimants, for fear of professional ruin. Added to the Government's assault on Legal Aid by seeking to abolish public funding for clinical negligence investigations and claims and the Jackson proposals undermining the financial viability of conditional fee agreements, this sorry episode could be seen as part of a wider long term agenda to render certain professional and corporate vested interests inviolate.
The implication is that in the long term the medical establishment and the Government wish to make it impossible for any potential multi- party drug damage claim ( or indeed any claim against NHS or private hospitals or general practitioners ) to ever receive public funding or be able to be pursued with a conditional fee agreement.
Is that what everyone really wants? A situation where no pharmaceutical company or health provider can ever be challeged, when recent history shows that the executives of some multi-national companies have been engaging in far more reprehensible conduct than the accusations levelled at Dr Wakefield.
I have no connection with Dr Wakefield or the solicitors involved in the MMR investigation, but the media rush to judgment of solicitors' and claimant experts' ethics in these cases is redolent of the Salem witch trials and deeply concerning to me as a solicitor with 30 years of experience of trying to bring claims for claimants in an environment where the dice have always been heavily loaded against injured patients and their families.
Regards
Gerry Ferguson T 01225 425731 Ext 1021 Partner DD 01225 352860 Clinical Negligence M 07831 718728 Withy King, Solicitors 5/6 Northumberland Buildings Bath BA1 2JE
Competing interests: Solicitor acting for claimants in clinical negligence cases
ROFL
Spoken like a Wakefield Cult True Believer(TM)!
Question for you queer fish:
If Brian Deer was ever so wrong concerning Wakefield's dishonesty and fraudulent claims, why did Wakefield not only abandon, but then also try to quash the libel proceedings he initiated against Deer and Deer's claims?
And this...
Please explain.
Quite simply, as this case proceeded and the start date for the prosecution by the GMC began to get closer, the defendants in the libel action demanded disclosure of all defence material in the GMC case and the judge instructed that they had to comply or forfeit their case. Dr Wakefield was forced to withdraw from the case simple,logical enough yes?.
Simply can someone get, Brian Lawrence, A.K.A. Messiah Brian Liar Deer to answer simple questions that are being asked of him here and on the BMJ.
Quite simply, as this case proceeded and the start date for the prosecution by the GMC began to get closer, the defendants in the libel action demanded disclosure of all defence material in the GMC case and the judge instructed that they had to comply or forfeit their case. Dr Wakefield was forced to withdraw from the case simple,logical enough yes?.
Simply can someone get, Brian Lawrence, A.K.A. Messiah Brian Liar Deer to answer simple questions that are being asked of him here and on the BMJ.
Oh Deer, oh Deer, Mr Queer-Fish, someone's really got to you, haven't they? So a journalist, working for years, has managed to force most of Mr Wakefield's collaborators to take their names off his paper, then to con the Lancet into withdrawing it, then to get his licence to practise medicine revoked, and finally to have the details of his money-making scam and fraud published in the BMJ?
He must be very influential. D'you reckon Big Pharma has anything to do with it?
But little wonder you're upset. What a terrible miscarriage of justice, set up by just one lone maverick with an axe to grind!
Well, good on you for bravely setting the record straight here, in this pharma-shill(TM) haven. And thank you too for providing links to a silly picture of Satan Brian and Saint Andrew, and a welcome slice of truth from whale.to, not to mention a letter from a solicitor specialising in medical negligence claims.
I can't speak for the other commentators here, but I feel your pain.
And all of it done, if I may say so, in exquisite English, in a measured tone and manner far removed from the shrill hyperbole adopted by so many on this site.
You, Sir, are a credit to gay pisceans everywhere.
Bravo!
I don't see the logic. Assuming Wakefield's claims were all above board, I still don't see the problem? It's possible I'm missing something here?
It's probably those damn Lizards again!
P.S. great attempts at diversion
( OT, but *just* possibly, in light of recent events, a bell wether indicating the future of the anti-vax movement):
A newspaper article dangled before me : "2011 People to Watch: Environmental activist has new 'green' goals"- Deirde Imus**, president of the Environmental Health Center @ HUMC, is developing a non-toxic shampoo that will "delouse kids without directly exposing them to pesticides" (?); two other studies at the center have investigated "enviromental exposures" in the homes of children with autism and the assessing the diets of children with cancer for evidence of vitamin deficiencies.
by Lindy Washburn, the Record, 1/13/11.
** Is it a sign of the times that the anti-vax, "green the clean" Imus is now interested in ( gasp!) *head lice*? Unfortunately, she does her "work" virtually in my own backyard.
dedicated lurker @ 248:
"The Ribos Operation"; it concerned an attempt by two con artists to sell a planet that they did not actually own by persuading the mark that it had some highly valuable minerals, which they'd actually planted.
"But he had such an open, honest face!"
"Romana, you can hardly be a decent crook with a dishonest face, can you?"
I should have known that off the top of my head, Calli, beause I own the novel of that one.
Gerry Ferguson's lengthy argument, quoted above, that Wakefield *had to* publish (for the sake of the children, you know), but also *had to* lie about his conflicts of interest and about the actual conditions of the children in question to protect his clients' interests in the upcoming lawsuit sounds superficially plausible except .... there was that press conference at which he gave the whole game away. The evil minions of Big Pharma must have listened to that and known instantly that they'd be facing a deluge of lawsuits based on it. It wasn't really necessary for them to know that he personally would be involved in some of those suits.Â
Interesting that Gerry Ferguson seems to have no problems whatsoever with Wakefield fabricating data. I hope that his British colleagues who work in criminal defense do not have such a blase attitude to fabricated evidence.
253 .Quite simply Yes to most of your suggestions ,apart from Deer never set anything up Deer is just a puppet who is being spoon fed personal data,e-mails which nobody else on the planet has privilege to(his own admission) .Simply when the dark powers can see a way of thrusting contrived allegations in a half legal way they suggest it to Deer this what you do,A,B,and C â¦hey Presto Deer appears like a kid joyously opening a present with all his allegedly great detective Journalism (at the same time everyone, Ben Goldache ,The Times,etc are distancing themselves from him shh! Messiah Deer cant see that) Quite simply Oprah Winfrey , should take a leaf from Messiah Deerâs book of how to get people to speak to you and use Messiah Deer cunning, Oprah should ,turn up on the door step of a Lancet 12 parent call herself Brian Lawrence and she might get an interview, it worked for Messiah Deer why not Oprah â¦detective journalism ⦠my sides split with laughing when I think of him calling himself a journalist never mind a detective ..Pinocchio would be more apt , only with Messiah Deer itâs the head that gets bigger..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
254.
Simply, Worshipper of Deer take up cards itâs the same logic..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
255.
Lizards ? simply you stick to Doctor Who, Lizards are more scary..they are more fact than Dr Who..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
256.
Very simply ,Quid pro quoâ¦fair enough yes? Did Todd bring you the oxygen â¦chainsaw no? keep holding your breath..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
257.
Very simple this one,Donât worry about the lice damaging your head and brain Messiah Deer has done that by the looks Offitâ¦
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
258.
Oh Deer your on the wrong blog Google Dr Who â¦
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
259.
Simply, your also on the wrong blog Google Dr Who funny you should arrive on here â¦
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
260.
Simply you need to be specific about what your talking about here dates etc .Dr Wakefield did many an interview prior to him withdrawing his libel for the sake of the up and coming case quite simply its all been answered before..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
261.
Very simple ,your charges, are based on the fabricated lies of one sole person on the whole planet , Messiah Deer spoon fed , strings pulled by his pharma paymaster Generals et-al
Why not investigate Deerâs connections to Pharma, who pays, Deer, the GMC , the BMJ ..give you a clue it ain`t Oprah Winfrey.
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
Looks like OQF is coming a bit unhinged. The fish's grammar is all over the place, and they seem to have developed a fixation for the word "simply".
Apologies for the delay, O Great Aquatic One. I was busy saving people. Now, did you actually read any of those studies you posted? It would behoove you to actually have some minor grasp of what you post in support of your arguments; it would save you the embarrassment of posting things which are unrelated or contradict your claims.
As to Deer, I personally think the guy's a bit of a self-centered egotist. That doesn't detract from the investigative work that he's done, though.
Years ago, when I worked in a law office, I used to do a certain amount of investigation on our cases. In one particular case, I located some documents that proved that our opponent was lying through her teeth. The case came to trial, she was on the stand, and my boss presented her with one of those documents and asked her to explain it. She replied, in horrified tones, "Where did you get this?" He repeated the question and she asked again, "Where did you get this?" He repeated the question and she turned to the judge and demanded, "Where did he get this?" The judge replied, "It doesn't matter where he got it. Answer the question." You can guess that we won that case.
One Quer[sic] Fish reminds me strongly of that opponent, and my answer to it is similar to the judge's answer. Brian Deer has proven Wakefield to be a fraud and if One Quer Fish wants to defend Wakefield, it's going to come up with a better defense than just questioning where Deer got the documents to prove it.
Can OQF be arrested for aggravated assault upon the English language?
Seriously, I'd expect something more coherent and understandable from a ten-year-old...
@QF: Here's a clue for you. Obtaining confidential documents of public interest is what journalists do -- good journalists anyway. They know how to work their sources.
Yes, if I were going to repeat the same paragraph seven times, I would definitely proofread it at least once.
Note to One Quer Fish: double quotation marks, such as the one between "his" and "apartment" in your repeated paragraph, come in pairs, and the first of the pair is immediately to the *left* of the first quoted word.
263,264,265,266,267
No faults with the subject matter good then.Heres another bit of slap up phie from Messiah Deers Phie shop enjoy!!
http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/is-brian-deer-a-brick…
Brian Deer âA Brick Short of A Loadâ [As The British Say]
Posted on January 14, 2011 by childhealthsafety
EDITORIAL
With the British media pretty much wholesale ignoring Brian Deerâs ârevelationsâ in the British Medical Journal, freelance journalist Brian Deer spent time casting around on 11th January for UK media outlets to give him coverage. Eventually The Guardian newspaper gave him a blog column. It is not being widely read but the result is extraordinary: âThe medical establishment shielded Andrew Wakefield from fraud claimsâ Brian Deer, Guardian Blog
On the blog Deer attacks the entire medical profession for protecting Andrew Wakefield. About The Lancet and British Medical Journal Deer says:
One of the most insidious cartels at the heart of British science is being torn apart: the two top journals in medical science.â
As Deer has just been published in the BMJ, that is an interesting perspective â ââbitingâ âhandâ and âfeedsâ come to mind.
Deer also singles out the chief public critics of Andrew Wakefield: Dr Paul Offit, Dr Ben Goldacre [author of The Guardian BadScience column] and Dr Michael Fitzpatrick [SpikedOnline columnist and author of a book defending MMR vaccine]. The Guardian newspaper is closely associated with The British Medical journal. The two organisations collaborate on publications and Guardian journalists are often seen reporting in the BMJ.
To assess public reaction see comments on the blog. We set out a selection below.
And here is Brian Deer on January 11th complaining he cannot get airtime on BBC radio because no journalist will appear with him. No prizes for guessing why:
Brian Deer - January 11th, 2011 â 17:54
Hey Kev,
Itâs times like this I wished I Twittered. BBC Radio 4âs Media Show just called me and said they were having to cancel a discussion of MMR because they couldnât find any journalist to speak against me.
Thatâs journalists not willing to appear on the Media Show.â
PUBLIC COMMENTS ON BRIAN DEERâS GUARDIAN BLOG
See the comments here: | Show all comments
And here is our selection:-
It makes one seriously wonder about the accuracy of anything else Brian Deer has to say or write. Helkie â 13 January 2011 2:50AM
Deer has completely lost it this time. If I had to name the three most vocal and ardent vaccine-damage deniers I could think of, it would be P.R.Offit, Goldacre and Fitzpatrick, yet here he is castigating them for going soft. He obviously wants all the credit for this ghastly smear for himself, and Iâve never seen a supposed news item with such a high proportion of âIâs, âmeâs and âmyâs in it. arbitraryNickname â 13 January 2011 12:46PM
I, I, I, me, me, meâ¦itâs a shame the investigation was left to this self-aggrandizing oaf. Check out his âexposeâ of Bactrim sometime. â MG75 â 12 January 2011 5:29PM
âBecause 13 years passed before I slayed the MMR monsterâ
Your investigative journalism may be very good, but the self congratulation is too much to read over and over and over and over againâ¦â¦â¦.â wolfmanjack â 13 January 2011 10:37AM
âDr Michael Fitzpatrick â another author who has defended MMR â denounced the GMCâs inquiries as a âwitchhuntâ. â Giving that alone is a striking misrepresentation of Dr Fitzpatrickâs stance towards Dr. Wakefield and Autism research in general.It`s ironic to see such selective misrepresentative quotes from the likes of Goldacre and Fitzpatrick used in an article about an invesigation that exposed selective and misrepresentative selection of patients by Dr Wakefield. LogicLover â 13 January 2011 2:14AM
I dont understand Deer, all the doctors quoted spoke of their developing knowledge, none were favourable to Wakefield. Deer may have wanted supportive condemning vitriol from the first day of his investigation but how can you expect that?
Why investigate if the evidence was so obvious?
For that matter even if there may be a case for wakefield committing fraud that hasnât been proved yet either.
I think Deer has to put in a bit more spade work than this if he is to prove he has found âOne of the most insidious cartels at the heart of British scienceâ SteveNayeeve â 13 January 2011 9:17AM
Having read Brian Deerâs BMJ article, with its profoundly shocking implications, I am mystified about the dearth of media comment: (eg : nothing whatever in the Google news âhealthâ subsection).
To quote from Ben Goldacreâs blog, above:
âthere has been almost total media silence in the UK on his current revelationsâ
WHY is there this media silence? (replies from cranks and conspiracy theorists not solicited) victoria30 13 January 2011 2:02PM
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
@OQF: I can play that game, too. And, I have tried searching LBRB, and used google, but cannot find ANY documentation that Brian Deer had medical records in his apartment (except in accusations on AOA, GR, and other nut sites). So, a link would be appreciated to a time when he said that. (request #2...I'll number them so you don't lose count as to how many times I've asked for a link to LBRB).
No, we're just not bothering to READ what you laughingly call the "subject matter" because it's so incoherent. Not worth my time to try and figure out what in the world you think you're saying.
@LW:
Veering off-topic: I thought that discovery was supposed to prevent one side from pulling surprises like that one the other during the trial.
@271:
You're generally right, though I can think of particular exceptions (e.g., used on cross-examination when the direct examination explored areas not covered in discovery, and it was not objected to or was allowed in over objection).
But in any case, fun story, so hey let it go, right?
Yes, discovery would have prevented this ambush if the opposing lawyer had engaged in any discovery. Which he didn't. Even after my boss met with him personally, told him we would prove his client a liar, and *gave him* some of the documents we already had. I cannot account for the behavior of lawyers.
Yes, we should not have been able to ambush her, but we did.
None of us here is Brian Deer's master.
In general, I find it the mark of a failing argument when someone resorts to implying that if a person not active in the current conversation doesn't respond to a question, some sort of victory has been achieved. Harping on the point excessively only makes you look bad, OQF, and highlights your lack of response to the actual fact that Wakefield has been proven to have committed fraud.
Yes, discovery would have prevented this ambush if the opposing lawyer had engaged in any discovery. Which he didn't. Even after my boss met with him personally, told him we would prove his client a liar, and *gave him* some of the documents we already had. I cannot account for the behavior of lawyers.
Oh, that one might be very easy. Think "client is arrogant enough to think there isn't a problem, doesn't want to 'throw away' money on discovery."
269.
Simply as I stated in a previous post Messiah Deers post was removed not before copies were made .As stated before the same happened when he had the Lancet 12`s children on his web site for a couple of years with NHS numbers ,names etc and again it disappeared (we think Deer was reported to the Police childrenâs unit for exposing full details of severly disabled minors/most vulnerable members of, society on the web the Police ordered him to remove the page which he hadnât for 2 years despite pleadings from the Lancet 12 parents)You wont find Messiah Deers lbrb post on the web unless lbrb put the post back up. No doubt Kev will be keeping that posting of Messiah Deers, as a kind of insurance against Messiah Deer just incase Messiah Deer tryâs to drop Kev in the Shit, when the shit hits the fan for Deer.If your looking for a copy of the posting from me hold your breath I might give you a look.
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
270.
Have you tried bi focalsâ¦
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
271.
The GMC kangaroo sham which wasnât a trialâ¦never mind a fair hearing ..Saddam was more democratic..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
272.
Your shoutâ¦
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
273.
Interesting..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
274.
Simply nobody understands what the fraud is its not clear .So far Messiah Deers accusations of fraud match up to normal hospital/GP/specialists notes Lets put it this way the great apes of Africa would understand this,If all the medical notes from 3 different sources had been word perfect the EXACT same in every detail,that would be fraud showing colousion..simple.Now explain the fraud?.
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
275.
The dreamers have to get real one day pharma guy..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
Re: Brian Deer - January 10, 2011 2:36 PM
Regarding Mr Deer's statement which says:-
Unfortunately, Mr Deer's statement misses out the crucial family doctor [GP] National Health Service records. These were not provided to the Royal Free Hospital, were not part of the hospital records and are the key documents upon which all his allegations are based.
Could Mr Deer please clarify his statement?
@One Queer Fish:
Well, if they were all hand written, rather than photo copies, carbon copies, or electronic, maybe. But Deer isn't talking about differences in wording, spelling, punctuation, and so forth, but substantive differences.
None of us control Deer, so you asking this over and over is futile, not to mention annoying.
@278 - Don't know as I'd bother (though of course you're free to disagree). The near total lack of coherence, sheer volume and length, and constant repetition make me think of someone in the "manic" phase of bipolar disorder. (No, I'm not trying to be insulting or to make jokes, I'm quite serious.)
And thanks to the tinfoil hat that I am wearing, Brian Deer is unable to control me.
All-One or None! EXCEPTIONS? ABSOLUTE NONE!
Since Ive run you all down and your all jaded,lets change ..phantastic
http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/breaking-news-stateme…
BREAKING NEWS: Statement From Dr. Andrew Wakefield: No Fraud. No Hoax. No Profit Motive.
Posted on January 14, 2011 by childhealthsafety
AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ â Dr. Andrew Wakefield issued the following statement today on the recent British Medical Journal articles:
âThe British Medical Journal and reporter Brian Deer recently alleged that my 1998 research paper was âa hoaxâ and âan elaborate fraudâ and that my motivation was profit.
âI want to make one thing crystal clear for the record â my research and the serious medical problems found in those children were not a hoax and there was no fraud whatsoever. Nor did I seek to profit from our findings.
âI stand by the Lancet paperâs methodology and the results which call for more research into whether environmental triggers cause gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in children. In fact, despite media reports to the contrary, the results of my research have been duplicated in five other countries (to see citations to studies, visit http://tinyurl.com/4hrdt5y.)
âIt is not unexpected to see poor reporting and misinformation coming from Brian Deer, the lead reporter of the recent BMJ coverage. But to see coverage in other media that cites Deerâs shoddy journalism in the BMJ as a final justification to claim there is no link between vaccines and autism is ludicrous. The MMR is only one vaccine of the eleven vaccinations on the pediatric schedule that has been studied for causing developmental problems such as autism. That is fact, not opinion. Any medical professional, government official or journalist who states that the case is closed on whether vaccines cause autism is jumping to conclusions without the research to back it up.
âI continue to fully support more independent research to determine if environmental triggers, including vaccines, are causing autism and other developmental problems. The current rate of autism is 1 in 110 children in the United States and 1 in 64 children in the U.K. My goal has always been and will remain the health and safety of children. Since the Lancet paper, I have lost my job, my career and my country. To claim that my motivation was profit is patently untrue. I will not be deterred â this issue is far too important.â
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
So is Saint Andy launching another libel suit against Brian Deer?
You know what I love about that statement from Wakefield defending himself? This (emphasis added):
Now, maybe I just haven't seen it anywhere, but as far as I know, Wakefield has not lost his citizenship in the U.K. He has not been forcibly expelled. No, he chose to leave and emigrate to the U.S., setting up shop at Thoughtful House. He could have stayed in the U.K., but chose not to. Yet another lie, and one that he's told before.
As for his job and his career, well, he did that to himself.
283.
I think his appeal comes first logical?
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
@OQF
In order to appeal, you need to have actually completed the case first. Wakefield dropped his libel suit against Deer before any judgment could be rendered. No judgment, no appeal. Now, if Deer's newest article is libelous, then what's stopping Wakefield from suing?
284
Simply,public pressure drove him out the Health Minister et-al.Are you seriously going to stay in a country with a pack of paid Pharma worshippers at your door every morning...The point you miss is that Deers lies are larfable..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
286.
Appeal- GMC!! duh!!
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
@OQF
And yet, he had (still has) quite a number of supporters there. Not to mention, it's a decent-sized country. And I'm sure they have anti-harassment laws to deal with "Pharma worshippers [sic] at [his] door every morning". You do have evidence that such was the case, yes?
P.S. Please stop beating up grammar. It's your friend.
289.
Use your brain cell or who has it on the Science Blog today,whose turn is it to keep it warm?
And yet, he had (still has) quite a number of supporters there. Not to mention, it's a decent-sized country. And I'm sure they have anti-harassment laws to deal with "Pharma worshippers [sic] at [his] door every morning". You do have evidence that such was the case, yes?
P.S. Please stop beating up grammar. It's your friend.
@OQF
As Todd points out, an appeal is not the next logical step as Wakefield dropped the suit. I think the lesson you should take from this latest erroneous statement is that you do not know as much as you think you do.
Actually, looking back at this thread I see you were already notified that Wakefield abandoned this and you replied to that post. So you should know better. Are you just very forgetful or is this "ignorance" intentional?
Simply the GMC appeal comes first if I mis-lead shit happens
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
Of course, his GMC ruling! If only you had actually mentioned that and put some context to your statements. Of course your post did not mention this and was replying to a post referring to a libel suit. But who wants to be clear about these things?
293.
Ooopps?your a star..never meant to mislead ..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
All-One our Queer Fish, self-discipline the key to love, uniting All-One above! Above! So, when your fellow man you measure, take him at his best, with that lever, lift him higher, overlook the rest! For we're All-One or none! As teach for 6000 years Messiah Deer âLISTEN CHILDREN ETERNAL PHARMA ETERNALLY ONEâ
Surely a successful libel suite against Brian Deer could only help his GMC appeal? Has Wakefield actually launched a GMC appeal?
Ask him yourself. Maybe send him an e-mail. It is not as though we have any more influence him than you do. I am not sure why you persist in thinking that people here have a connection to him allowing us to compel him to do so.
Has Wakefield actually filed an appeal from the GMC decision? Usually that must be done within a few weeks, or at most 2-3 months after the ruling, and he was struck off last spring, I believe. As he didn't actually present a defense, what would be the legal or factual basis for such an appeal? "I don't agree with your decision" is not sufficient.
@Travis:
I guess it's a rhetorical device meant to constantly remind us that Deer hasn't answered some of John Stone's questions, with the implication that Deer ignoring Stone means that everything Deer has said are lies. When the only tool you have is a hammer...
Methinks Mr. Wakefield would want to steer clear of venues where lying (under oath) has (criminal) legal repercussions and his audience is unlikely to be impressed by his self-confidence and charm.
I believe the term for such thinking is "delusional".
295.
Very touching that thanks..
296.
No ,look up Judge Eady big disadvantage to go to libel just now ,not that Messiah Deer knows that shhh..
297.
Ill do that..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
@DT35
Oh, well, not with the GMC. No, his defense was a document titled Callous Disregard in which he presented evidence that exonerated him. Now, he could have presented this evidence during the GMC hearings, but that might have impacted his book sales. Clearly.
Indeed. I haven't heard any more about an appeal other than Wakefield declaring,just after the GMC findings,that he intended one.
I also notice he (Wakefield) has made no mention of intention toward a libel suite against Brian Deer in regard to Deer's latest revelations.
Brian Deer offers him encouragement
298.
Simply nobody knows as you can see below from the GMC guide lines its confidential..
Appeal
28 A doctor has 28 days in which to appeal to the
High Court or Court of Session about any decision
by the Fitness to Practise Panel. The panelâs decision
will not take effect until either the appeal period
expires or the appeal is determined. However, the
panel can impose an immediate order of suspension
or conditions if it believes this is needed to protect
the public or is in the best interests of the doctor.
300.
Simply as these questions remain un answered the longer they remain unanswered the worse it gets.
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
302 ,303
Just answered its confidential one(as in Royal) wouldnt know ..
P.S. Can you get Messiah Deer to answer the questions on here and on the BMJ, was Messiah Deer supervised when he had the medical notes in hisâ apartment and be a bit more clearer about the Wakefield Fraud as nobody with a clear mind can see what the Fraud is that Messiah Deer is ranting about, please thanks.
@Sauceress
What's even more amusing is that Wakefield actually asked for the GMC to get involved:
Methinks Mr. Wakefield would want to steer clear of venues where lying (under oath) has (criminal) legal repercussions and his audience is unlikely to be impressed by his self-confidence and charm.
I believe the term for such thinking is "delusional".
OK, as my regular readers know, I'm incredibly tolerant of nearly viewpoints on this blog, to the point of letting people who despise me or who have what I consider to be despicable views say almost anything they want. That's freedom of speech, which I value highly, even when the speech is reprensible. However, one thing I do not tolerate is repetition to the point of near spamming. That's what you've been doing by repeating this over and over and over and over--at least 25 times in this thread alone.
Knock it off or you're outta here. You can express damned near any opinion you want, but the repetition of this same paragraph over and over again just wastes bandwidth, annoys me, and accomplishes nothing other than revealing you to be an utter tosser.
Oh you mean where Wakefield tried to bluff Deer with a sham libel suite, tried to pull out of the game when he saw what Deer had in his hand, Judge Eady refused to allow Wakefield to drop the suite, Wakefield lost and had to pay Brian Deer?
That one?
Nobody knows whether or not Wakefield has launched an appeal because that info is confidential? Reference?
@Orac:
Awww, c'mon, Orac, repetition is a powerful rhetorical tool which...
Okay, yeah, I agree with you here.
With regard to Wakefield's purported appeal, I'm afraid it's the same old story. He has filed a document, but has done so "in person" (meaning without representation) because, on advice from his GMC defence legal team, the Medical Protection Society has declined to fund an appeal.
I guess they figure they've thrown enough of their members' money down the toilet.
So, he has a document filed, so he can say he is appealing, but he doesn't actually do anything to progress it - as he tried to do with his libel action, and which he did with a complaint two years ago to the Press Complaints Commission.
I'm not sure what the GMC does in this situation.
Orac, if you want to see something that will really blow your mind, go look at Jenny McCarthy's Huffer Puffer piece right now. The comment still should be near the top of the first page.
Who'da thunk....
Thanks Brian. So his *appeal* is just something to feed his cult followers and keep up appearances...and keep those appearance fees coming in.
I was betting it would probably be something like that.
Perhaps they should take a leaf out of Judge Eady's book.
Ocac, I never thought this was a democratic site anyway..
Had to go and get a bite to eat so sorry I missed Messiah Deer and his words of wisdom as he condescended to post on the site leaving majestically without answering any questions raised previously. As Messiah Deer knew he would not receive a libel while this appeal is/ was/maybe ongoing hence his articles this week and last that the mainstream media in the UK will not touch,and everyone is slowly backing away from him.
Keep worshipping guys he is going to need your support..
@One Queer Fish:
1) A lot more democratic than Age of Autism.
2) Being prohibited from repeating the same block of text over and over and over is an extremely minor restriction of speech.
So Queer Fish, how much money have you raised, or donated for
your cult leaders "appeal"?
Why aren't you spending your time doing that rather than spamming this blog with your immature ignorance?
In my line of work, I have met face-to-face with some seriously creepy people. But I don't think anyone has ever creeped me out as badly as reading the comments above from One Queer Fish (oddly apropos name).
316,317
Hey dont shoot the messenger you did that before.If it werent for meee posts, Messiah Deer wouldnt have condescended on your site with words of wisdom further enlighting you to the facts he hides from you all...
OQF, he never answered your question, because you never backed up your accusation in the first place. You said the following:
"remember Deer disclosed on lbrb that he had the childrenâs medical files kicking around in his apartment for a couple of weeks?" You've been sending every other link you could, why not send us a link to that disclosure? I might as well have said "In an earlier comment thread, OQF claimed to be working for hostile extraterrestrials," and asked why you were selling out humanity repeatedly.
Then there's this: "anyone who met AW would rapidly form the impression within a half-hour, if not just minutes, that he is a good person, who really had the children's interests at heart and had has nothing to hide." You could say that about Ted Bundy as well.
I propose that OQF is actually that weirdo dude who said he was "Smarter Than You" and wants to misdirect from his failed attempt to "open (our) eyes" in December of last year. I mean, all the clues are there... The bad grammar, the bad spelling, and the continued spamming.
318
I thought I was sane compared to your friends but I have never meant to freak you out..time to stop living the Messiah Deer lie guys
321,322
C`MON you insulted various bloggers on here for playing the guessing game thats not why were here is it..were here to hear from Messiah Deer ,time to start judging the Deer lie you live in guys...
I know you aren't familiar with the concept queer fish,but a little research could have provided the facts of the matter. Brian Deer has just saved me that effort. (no doubt another concept you are unfamiliar with)
Now if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do than continue reading your factless ongoing little wankfest.
p.s.You seem to be floating around belly up...is that normal? Never mind...the answer is obviously "yes"
324.
Please dont go the party hasnt started yet,I have more l-a-t-e-r that Messiah Deer hasnt enlightened you all about.. hang about its good ..
OQF,
You're boring. Either put up or shut up. And please, no recycled AoA nonsense or links to whale.to. That's an automatic fail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.
326.
I havent quoted AOA on here that I recall.I thought you appreciated me on here all the information ..maybe not..I guess you need to google Monopoly forums...
Citing "childhealthsafety" is also and automatic fail.
328.
I am just reflecting the posts in the manner you project them to me ,I am your reflection does that worry you.Stop living the Messiah Deer lie...
@ Militant Agnostic: You win at least four Internets for the Dr Bronner references.
Lord Zeneca, may I nominate our colleague Agnostic for Employee of the Month? Certainly s/he deserves some sort of certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame.
"I am just reflecting the posts in the manner you project them to me ,I am your reflection does that worry you.". Has augustine changed its handle?
@One Queer Fish:
How, exactly, was I shooting the messenger? I was responding to your accusation that this isn't a democratic blog.
(And if the above paragraph is also somehow "shooting the messenger", I'm going to bang my head against my desk)
Deer has commented to this blog before without being prompted by an anti-vaxxer. In fact, of all his comments here, only the one in this comment thread were in response to an anti-vaxxer.
332
Simply I am the messenger as i brought the message that this is not a democratic site( which i wouldnt expect it to be anything other than what it is, a boorish ,thuggish, totalitarian, Orwellian, themed site )
Simply messiah Deer could be a bit more open with you all,on here, you wouldnt hate me so much when I bring you news.....
keep worshipping,
keep breathing ,
inhale ,and at the same time say to yourself "in with hate "
breath out saying to yourself " out with hate"
better now ?
Thats all I have time for just now I have to attend to a few important matters
Maybe more news/answers later
@One Queer Fish:
Okay, but you said that I was "shooting the messenger". Where did I "shoot" you? Unless we all live in some weird universe were "disagreeing with the messenger" equals "shooting the messenger".
Oh, come on. All Orac has done is forbidden you from repeating the same block of text over and over and over. If that's Orwellian, then what do you call Age of Autism, which frequently deletes dissenting comments?
Lame, lame, lame. C'mon, OQF, if you've got the goods, represent. My guess is that you don't, that you're nothing but a blowhard and a fraud. You and Wakey are two fo a kind.
One Queer Fish:
Assuming for the moment that you are a citizen resident of the United States, your rights to free speech protect you, for the most part, from government action against you. I expect other constitutional democracies will have similar safeguards.
I am sure a constitutional expert will correct me if I am too far off the mark, but they do not guarantee you unlimited freedom of expression in private fora (including, strictly speaking, blogs such as this one).
They also do protect you from criticism, deserved or undeserved, about your writings or the opinions they appear to reflect.
Since your writings are mostly an incoherent word salad of unsupported, smear-like accusations against Brian Deer, no wonder people are calling you out or ridiculing you for them.
Correction:
should be
My bad.
@Composer99:
But, but, but, repeating the same block of text over and over and over wherever he wants is integral to his self expression!!!1!1
Hey, man, don't be shooting the messenger.
ORAC,
It is not good enough. You threaten "One Queer Fish" with expulsion from your comment thread here [January 14, 2011 3:19 PM] for asking repeatedly a question to which a great many people want an answer.
But it was you who published on this thread Deer's comment issuing his formal looking statement which included this:
Unfortunately, Mr Deer's statement misses out the crucial family doctor [GP] National Health Service records. These were not provided to the Royal Free Hospital, were not part of the hospital records and are the key documents upon which all his allegations are based.
Could Mr Deer please clarify his statement regarding the GP records?
The wording of Mr Deer's statement is unusual in the circumstances and it is difficult to see how Mr Deer could not have known that when he drafted it.
Is Mr Deer going to "fess up" or not?
Please tell everyone.
@ChildHealthSafety:
Well, yes. He was repeating the exact same block of text over and over and over, and it was getting really really annoying. Telling him to stop repeating one block of text over and over was a reasonable step for Orac to take. (And then One Queer Fish says that the restriction is undemocratic and Orwellian. My eyes roll)
Matthew Cline January 15, 2011 1:59 AM
I agree. One Queer Fish does have a unique approach but many are also frustrated by Brian Deer's failures to answer very basic questions.
And what is the relevance?
Mr Deer claims to have "gone behind" the 1998 Lancet paper - but he has not. It is clear now from his publication in the British Medical Journal that he compared the Lancet paper's findings with the family doctor [General Practitioner or GP] records. That is comparing apples with concrete.
The 1998 Lancet paper was written by Wakefield based on the data and results provided to him by the others on the 12 strong interdisciplinary team of specialists at The Royal Free Hospital.
They had the initial referral letter from the GP, the "Red Book" of developmental progress [held by the parents], fresh parental histories taken by Professor Walker-Smith [not Wakefield], test and clinical examination results and any further information in any ensuing correspondence with GPs.
If Mr Deer wanted to "go behind" the paper then he needed to have that data and those results and compare it with the contents of the Lancet paper.
He did not do that. He used the GP records, but in his statement he claims to have used just the hospital records "read under legal supervision".
The hospital records did not include the GP records. The GP records were not available to, did not form part of the hospital records at The Royal Free and were not used by the treating specialists at the Royal Free.
GP records are made by non specialists [General Practitioners], taken over years, by more than one person, omit information provided by parents and contain other information unknown to parents.
It is also clear from the transcripts at the GMC that the GP records are riven with fundamental errors like incorrect dates of vaccinations [eg. Child 8 - 7th January instead of 27th January - "I think" said the GP in evidence] and incorrect types of vaccinations being recorded [eg. Child 4 - was it measles vaccine or was it MMR - the records say MMR - the GP said in evidence it was measles].
And there are significant inconsistencies in the account Mr Deer has now published in detail in The British Medical Journal. We will be happy to point these out in a later post. Child 1, 8 and 11 are easy examples and there are many more.
The Royal Free Team consisted of 13 specialists who did their own examinations, took fresh histories and made their own specialist diagnoses afresh. They did not rely on shaky family doctor [ie. non specialist] records. This is standard practice in British NHS hospitals. Unlike the USA, UK medical records do not travel with the patient. And they belong to the UK National Health Service not the patient.
Furthermore, the GP records which Mr Deer cites extensively and in detail but regrettably inaccurately in the British Medical Journal are sealed under Court order. They are not available from the General Medical Council - only extracts read out in the GMC proceedings from the transcripts are available.
Mr Deer does not take shorthand notes but managed to publish in February 2009 allegations that Wakefield "fixed the data" based on the GP records. He has now published in the same general vein more extensively and in greater detail "fraud" allegations when fraud by Wakefield was impossible. If he had committed fraud then that would have been noticed by the other 12 authors of the 1998 Lancet paper long before now and before it was ever published.
As you can see therefore, an answer to the question about the GP records is fundamental. Can Mr Deer therefore please clarify his statement as this cuts across the entire credibility of everything he has ever published about Wakefield.
Messiah Deer has duped all the worshippers on here.His reporting is so narcissistic, pathetic , disengenious and lacking honesty, it boggles the mind.
Very accurate postings above from Child Health Safety A+++.
P.S.
I have no complaints about this site whatsoever,it just seems that when I point out the tone of the site it comes as a shock to the regulars..shit happens..
One Queer Fish writes:
i brought the message that this is not a democratic site
You're correct, it's meritocratic, and you be strongly lackin' in the merit department, my man.
From the 1998 Lancet paper:
'Children underwent gastroenterological, neurological, and developmental assessment and review of developmental records... Developmental histories included a review of prospective developmental records from parents, health visitors, and general practitioners.'
343.
You fooled me just like Meesiah Deer duped you..
344.
And your point is?
Just seen this on the web loads of people looking for answers from Messiah Deer,loads...
http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/wakefield-mmr-brian-d…
Wakefield & MMR â Brian Deer Fails To Answer
Posted on January 15, 2011 by childhealthsafety
After publishing allegations of fraud in the British Medical Journal against the authors of The 1998 Royal Free Hospital teamsâ Lancet paper, in the face of incisive criticism from many quarters journalist Brian Deer appears to have vanished from the web.
Mr Deer normally is very quick to post on blogs around the internet but he is not answering the criticisms of his work. This includes on his own blog in The Guardian newspaper which he was given this week and on The British Medical Journalâs responses.
No response has been received here on CHS, on Age of Autism, nor on blogs where Mr Deer regularly posts including the infamous LeftBrainRightBrain blog and even on ORACâs blog..
You can see criticisms posted at the following locations and there is no sign of any answer from Brian Deer so far.
ORAC responded to questions posted for Brian Deer by blocking CHS from his site. You are of course welcome to visit - links below â and ask Mr Deer to answer, to see the criticisms and find out if Brian Deer has answered anywhere.
If you find anywhere that Mr Deer has answered be sure to let us know.
DEERâS OWN BLOG ON THE GUARDIAN
âThe medical establishment shielded Andrew Wakefield from fraud claimsâ
BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL RESPONSES
Responses to âWakefieldâs article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulentâ
Responses to âThe fraud behind the MMR scareâ
Responses to âHow the case against the MMR vaccine was fixedâ
Responses to âSecrets of the MMR scare : How the vaccine crisis was meant to make moneyâ
AGE OF AUTISM
Brian Deer Interviewed by Matt Lauer on Dateline NBC
Keeping Anderson Cooper Honest: Is Brian Deer The Fraud?
Brian Deer Hired to âFind Something Bigâ on MMR
Lancet 12 Parents Respond to Brian Deer BMJ GMC Allegations
Brian Deer in BMJ and Dr. Andrew Wakefieldâs Response â AGE OF AUTISM
CHS
The BIG Lie â Wakefield Lancet Paper Alleged Fraud â Was Not Possible For Anyone To Commit
Wakefield & MMR â BRIAN DEER CANNOT TELL US WHERE THE FRAUD IS
Wakefield & MMR â Is Brian Deer âA Brick Short of A Loadâ [As The British Say]
LEFTBRAINRIGHTBRAIN COMMENTS
âFact checking Brian Deer on Andrew Wakefieldâ
âThe Big Lie â what Andrew Wakefield did was possible and fraudulentâ
ORAC
âThe Vaccine Times: For parents, by parentsâ
âMisdirected criticism by someone from whom I would never have expected itâ
sounds like a good description of Mr. Wakefield.
343.
You having a larf or what??
344.
Whats your point??
345.
Still Dr Wakefield as he got his qualli at Uni-the Gmc cant take that away ...
Soo sorry for the duplication connection to my internet playing up...
Wakefield does not have a PhD.
351.
Yes, Bachelor/Doctor Of Medicine
@OQF
Wakefield does not have a doctorate. He does not have a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree.
CHS and OQF remind me of a French politician who regularly appeared simultaneously in the News of our 6 TV channels to shout that he is silenced by the media.
354.
Yes MBBS..
355.
I have no complaints concerning this site and the way ORAC handles the postings,its not a democratic site dont forget that...or you might find your self banned
@One Queer Fish:
He only prohibited you from repeating the same block of text over and over and over. Since repeating the same block of text can't be used to convey new information, he hasn't prevented you from communicating effectively.
One Queer Fish,
if, as you claim in post 345 at Posted by: One Queer Fish | January 15, 2011 3:23 PM,
How is it that CHS posted on a different thread (Misdirected criticism by someone from whom I would never have expected it) Posted by: ChildHealthSafety | January 15, 2011 6:27 PM?
One Queer Fish,
At first I thought that you're a tiresome troll with a poorly thought out arguement and no supporting data. I still thought that when you repeated the same point (sometimes even the exact same text) 50 times with no evidence. But, as you shrewdly guessed, there is a magic number of times that you need to repeat yourself before people automatically agree with you. That number happens to be somewhere in the range of 67. Congratulations, you have repeated yourself enough times that you are now correct. It probably was a more time consuming way to make yourself correct than it would have been to form a coherent argument, but I admire your tenacity for using this method. Now that you are correct by virtue of repetition, you may take some time to relax and have a non blog-related life.
357.
Who is complaining if its not a democratic site ..not me I dont know how many times I am going to have to repeat this for you to believe me..no problem-o-o-o
358.
Havent a scooby??
Tell me go on??you cheeky monkey that you are..
359.
Ok "coherent" how coherent do you want it, hows this
Beggarâs belief why the GMC and rapid fire Deer donât reply??
1.âif you look at Deerâs report, in most cases he is comparing the Royal Freeâs own records with the Lancet paperâ
Mr Deer has done it a tad shoddily it seems. How that got past the âpeer reviewersâ raises questions about what âpeer reviewâ means at the BMJ.
Unfortunately Mr Deer appears to have gone to ground and is not even answering basic questions put to him on his new Guardian blog.
Instead his âbig sisâ ploy is to get the BMJ Deputy Editor to post instead â she says âif you donât like what we say sue usâ. Which is a remarkable position for a supposedly peer reviewed journal to take.
âIn most casesâ takes on a new meaning regarding Child 11 â remember these are allegations of fraud being made â see below.
And we see you, like the usual suspects on a Kev Leitch blog. engage in the usual personal attacks on people who are not around to defend themselves. Nice. The usual bully tactics.
Regrettably âvisitorâ it is the answers from Mr Deer himself which are needed â the horseâs mouth so-to-speak and not the go-betweens on Kevin Leitchâs blog.
Can we have answers from Mr Deer please or is he continuing to hide?
______________________________
Examples Mr Deer refuses to answer. Perhaps he might step out of the shadows now and deal with them?:-
Child 1, 8, 11
In order to âgo behindâ the 1998 Lancet paper, Mr Deer needed the original data and records provided to Mr Andrew Wakefield by his 12 other professional specialist colleagues at The Royal Free Hospital, London.
Does Mr Deer have exactly that data and those records? Or has Mr Deer instead relied on such of the NHS records of children either disclosed to him under Court rules [CPR 31.22] in the Wakefield v Channel 4 & Deer libel litigation and/or information contained in the transcripts of the General Medical Council proceedings.
Child 11âs medical records were not available for the GMC hearings. Very little mention was made of Child 11. Can Mr Deer explain upon what particular medical records for Child 11 he relies?
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORIES
This is what the 1998 Royal Free Lancet paper said about all the Lancet 12 children:-
they had âa history of normal development followed by loss of acquired skillsâ.
That was a main issue the 1998 Royal Free Lancet paper was reporting on scientifically and medically. It also states clearly it was an âearly reportâ and called for further investigation.
CHILD 8
Mr Deer says about Child 8:-
âBut although the paper specified that all 12 children were âpreviously normal,â [Child 8] had developmental delays, and also facial dysmorphisms, noted before MMR vaccination.
For Child 8 specifically the Lancet paper stated:-
âProspective developmental records showed satisfactory achievement of early milestones in all children. The only girl (child number eight) was noted to be a slow developer compared to her older sister.â
Let us now compare what The General Medical Council hearing transcripts show regarding Child 8âs specialist developmental pediatricianâs opinions. This specialist was not any part of the Royal Free team and was part of the normal UK NHS health service.
May 1994 age 10.5 months:
âThere were no neurological abnormalities and I felt that her development was within normal limitsâ
23 December 1994 (approx 18 months) â developmental pediatrician wrote:
âI felt that her abilities, although delayed on the average age of attainment were not outside the range of normal. Her growth has been satisfactory.â
17 February 1995: The developmental pediatrician writes three weeks after MMR:
âWhen I reviewed her in clinic recently I confirmed that she is globally developmentally delayed, functioning at about a one year level on Denver Developmental Assessment. ...... General examination is unremarkable. There were no neurological abnormalities other than the developmental delay.â
As this is a scientific medical paper specifically focussed on developmental histories, can Mr Deer please explain where he believes the discrepancy is between what is reported in the Lancet paper and what the developmental pediatrician recorded in his clinical opinion.
Can Mr Deer also please confirm that the appropriate opinion to rely on in such a case is that of the specialist developmental pediatrician and not the views of Child 8âs mother nor the view of the referring General Practitioner.
Would Mr Deer like to confirm that in scientific terms in a scientific medical paper reporting on the history of development, Child 8âs clinical history was normal prior to MMR vaccination â or as the specialist developmental pediatrician stated within the ânormal rangeâ.
CHILD 11
Assuming Mr Deer did not have Child 11âs full medical records, on what basis can anyone make a serious allegation of fraud?
CHILD 1
Mr Deer implies [but does not say] that Child 1 may have had symptoms of an autistic condition aged 9 months â well before the MMR vaccination:
âOne of the motherâs concerns was that he could not hear properlyâwhich might sound like a hallmark presentation of classical autism, the emergence of which is often insidious.â
The additional GP records disclosed in the GMC proceedings (but not available to the Royal Free team) contain an entry documenting in addition to his motherâs concerns about Child 1âs hearing, her additional concern was about a discharge from Child 1âs left ear. Is it not correct that this concern is not suggestive of an incipient developmental disorder but of an ear infection?
BMJ FACT CHECKING
In The Sunday Times last, 9th January, Mr Deer says he insisted the BMJ checked his facts. Did they do so? And if so, what did they do?
INSPECTION OF DATA
Perhaps Mr Deer would be kind enough to confirm where the data relied on in this article can be inspected please?
Mr Deer claims to have gone behind the Royal Freeâs 1998 Lancet paper to expose fundamental flaws.
Would Mr Deer perhaps agree that it now seems from this BMJ paper by him that is not what he has done?
It appears Mr Deer has compared the Lancet paperâs findings with the childrensâ GP records instead of with the data and results provided to Mr Andrew Wakefieldâs other 12 authors on an interdisciplinary team of medical specialists.
It would be helpful for Mr Deer to explain how on such a basis can an allegation of fraud be sustained?
If Mr Deer wanted to âgo behindâ the paper then he needed to have the data and results provided for the preparation of the Lancet paper and compare it with the contents of that paper.
The 1998 Lancet paper was written by Mr Andrew Wakefield based on the data and results provided to him by those other 12 specialists.
If there was any falsification as is now being alleged in the British Medical Journal Mr Wakefieldâs 12 other authors would have noticed immediately.
Those other authors had the initial referral letter from the GP, the âRed Bookâ of developmental progress [held by the parents], fresh parental histories taken by Professor Walker-Smith [not Wakefield], test and clinical examination results and any further information in any ensuing correspondence with GPs.
The Royal Free Team did their own examinations, took fresh histories and made their own specialist diagnoses afresh. They did not rely on family doctor [ie. non specialist] GP records. This is standard practice in British NHS hospitals.
GP records are made by non specialists [General Practitioners], taken over years, by more than one person, omit information provided by parents and contain other information unknown to parents.
It is also clear from the transcripts at the GMC that the GP records are riven with fundamental errors like incorrect dates of vaccinations [eg. Child 8 â 7th January instead of 27th January â âI thinkâ said the GP in evidence] and incorrect types of vaccinations being recorded [eg. Child 4 â was it measles vaccine or was it MMR - the records say MMR - the GP said in evidence it was measles].
Additionally the 1998 Lancet paper stated prominently on the first page âEarly Reportâ and it called for further investigation.
Does Mr Deer not agree that an âearly reportâ is an alert to other medical practitioners of a potential problem and not a claim to have found and proven one?
357.
Who is complaining if its not a democratic site ..not me I dont know how many times I am going to have to repeat this for you to believe me..no problem-o-o-o
358.
Havent a scooby??
Tell me go on??you cheeky monkey that you are..
359.
Ok "coherent" how coherent do you want it, hows this
Beggarâs belief why the GMC and rapid fire Deer donât reply??
1.âif you look at Deerâs report, in most cases he is comparing the Royal Freeâs own records with the Lancet paperâ
Mr Deer has done it a tad shoddily it seems. How that got past the âpeer reviewersâ raises questions about what âpeer reviewâ means at the BMJ.
Unfortunately Mr Deer appears to have gone to ground and is not even answering basic questions put to him on his new Guardian blog.
Instead his âbig sisâ ploy is to get the BMJ Deputy Editor to post instead â she says âif you donât like what we say sue usâ. Which is a remarkable position for a supposedly peer reviewed journal to take.
âIn most casesâ takes on a new meaning regarding Child 11 â remember these are allegations of fraud being made â see below.
And we see you, like the usual suspects on a Kev Leitch blog. engage in the usual personal attacks on people who are not around to defend themselves. Nice. The usual bully tactics.
Regrettably âvisitorâ it is the answers from Mr Deer himself which are needed â the horseâs mouth so-to-speak and not the go-betweens on Kevin Leitchâs blog.
Can we have answers from Mr Deer please or is he continuing to hide?
______________________________
Examples Mr Deer refuses to answer. Perhaps he might step out of the shadows now and deal with them?:-
Child 1, 8, 11
In order to âgo behindâ the 1998 Lancet paper, Mr Deer needed the original data and records provided to Mr Andrew Wakefield by his 12 other professional specialist colleagues at The Royal Free Hospital, London.
Does Mr Deer have exactly that data and those records? Or has Mr Deer instead relied on such of the NHS records of children either disclosed to him under Court rules [CPR 31.22] in the Wakefield v Channel 4 & Deer libel litigation and/or information contained in the transcripts of the General Medical Council proceedings.
Child 11âs medical records were not available for the GMC hearings. Very little mention was made of Child 11. Can Mr Deer explain upon what particular medical records for Child 11 he relies?
DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORIES
This is what the 1998 Royal Free Lancet paper said about all the Lancet 12 children:-
they had âa history of normal development followed by loss of acquired skillsâ.
That was a main issue the 1998 Royal Free Lancet paper was reporting on scientifically and medically. It also states clearly it was an âearly reportâ and called for further investigation.
CHILD 8
Mr Deer says about Child 8:-
âBut although the paper specified that all 12 children were âpreviously normal,â [Child 8] had developmental delays, and also facial dysmorphisms, noted before MMR vaccination.
For Child 8 specifically the Lancet paper stated:-
âProspective developmental records showed satisfactory achievement of early milestones in all children. The only girl (child number eight) was noted to be a slow developer compared to her older sister.â
Let us now compare what The General Medical Council hearing transcripts show regarding Child 8âs specialist developmental pediatricianâs opinions. This specialist was not any part of the Royal Free team and was part of the normal UK NHS health service.
May 1994 age 10.5 months:
âThere were no neurological abnormalities and I felt that her development was within normal limitsâ
23 December 1994 (approx 18 months) â developmental pediatrician wrote:
âI felt that her abilities, although delayed on the average age of attainment were not outside the range of normal. Her growth has been satisfactory.â
17 February 1995: The developmental pediatrician writes three weeks after MMR:
âWhen I reviewed her in clinic recently I confirmed that she is globally developmentally delayed, functioning at about a one year level on Denver Developmental Assessment. ...... General examination is unremarkable. There were no neurological abnormalities other than the developmental delay.â
As this is a scientific medical paper specifically focussed on developmental histories, can Mr Deer please explain where he believes the discrepancy is between what is reported in the Lancet paper and what the developmental pediatrician recorded in his clinical opinion.
Can Mr Deer also please confirm that the appropriate opinion to rely on in such a case is that of the specialist developmental pediatrician and not the views of Child 8âs mother nor the view of the referring General Practitioner.
Would Mr Deer like to confirm that in scientific terms in a scientific medical paper reporting on the history of development, Child 8âs clinical history was normal prior to MMR vaccination â or as the specialist developmental pediatrician stated within the ânormal rangeâ.
CHILD 11
Assuming Mr Deer did not have Child 11âs full medical records, on what basis can anyone make a serious allegation of fraud?
CHILD 1
Mr Deer implies [but does not say] that Child 1 may have had symptoms of an autistic condition aged 9 months â well before the MMR vaccination:
âOne of the motherâs concerns was that he could not hear properlyâwhich might sound like a hallmark presentation of classical autism, the emergence of which is often insidious.â
The additional GP records disclosed in the GMC proceedings (but not available to the Royal Free team) contain an entry documenting in addition to his motherâs concerns about Child 1âs hearing, her additional concern was about a discharge from Child 1âs left ear. Is it not correct that this concern is not suggestive of an incipient developmental disorder but of an ear infection?
BMJ FACT CHECKING
In The Sunday Times last, 9th January, Mr Deer says he insisted the BMJ checked his facts. Did they do so? And if so, what did they do?
INSPECTION OF DATA
Perhaps Mr Deer would be kind enough to confirm where the data relied on in this article can be inspected please?
Mr Deer claims to have gone behind the Royal Freeâs 1998 Lancet paper to expose fundamental flaws.
Would Mr Deer perhaps agree that it now seems from this BMJ paper by him that is not what he has done?
It appears Mr Deer has compared the Lancet paperâs findings with the childrensâ GP records instead of with the data and results provided to Mr Andrew Wakefieldâs other 12 authors on an interdisciplinary team of medical specialists.
It would be helpful for Mr Deer to explain how on such a basis can an allegation of fraud be sustained?
If Mr Deer wanted to âgo behindâ the paper then he needed to have the data and results provided for the preparation of the Lancet paper and compare it with the contents of that paper.
The 1998 Lancet paper was written by Mr Andrew Wakefield based on the data and results provided to him by those other 12 specialists.
If there was any falsification as is now being alleged in the British Medical Journal Mr Wakefieldâs 12 other authors would have noticed immediately.
Those other authors had the initial referral letter from the GP, the âRed Bookâ of developmental progress [held by the parents], fresh parental histories taken by Professor Walker-Smith [not Wakefield], test and clinical examination results and any further information in any ensuing correspondence with GPs.
The Royal Free Team did their own examinations, took fresh histories and made their own specialist diagnoses afresh. They did not rely on family doctor [ie. non specialist] GP records. This is standard practice in British NHS hospitals.
GP records are made by non specialists [General Practitioners], taken over years, by more than one person, omit information provided by parents and contain other information unknown to parents.
It is also clear from the transcripts at the GMC that the GP records are riven with fundamental errors like incorrect dates of vaccinations [eg. Child 8 â 7th January instead of 27th January â âI thinkâ said the GP in evidence] and incorrect types of vaccinations being recorded [eg. Child 4 â was it measles vaccine or was it MMR - the records say MMR - the GP said in evidence it was measles].
Additionally the 1998 Lancet paper stated prominently on the first page âEarly Reportâ and it called for further investigation.
Does Mr Deer not agree that an âearly reportâ is an alert to other medical practitioners of a potential problem and not a claim to have found and proven one?
One Queer Fish @360, 361
Nothing in this comment you decided to post twice yet again (including your reply to me) even remotely resembles "coherent."
@One Queer Fish:
You've called this site thuggish, totalitarian, and Orwellian, but you're not complaining, no sir!
362.
Sorry for posting twice ,the connection seems to take about 5 minutes for it to post ,and it seems to sit doing nothing and then I hit again and instantly ,it comes up twice.
363.
Someone tell them I aint complaining ,just highlighted the enviroment...no problemoooo.If you keep repeating this you are wasting Oracs band width..
Could any of the pair of you give any answers or debate to the above,thought not...bye
Okay, Fish: you're talking gibberish.
One Queer Fish
The little swirly dots that replace the Sb (Science Blogs logo) on the tab indicate that it is doing something. You can always open another tab or another window because posts often appear in the new one before the old one lets you know it's finished processing.
OneQueerFish is in fact a Mr Angus Files, who lives in the west of Scotland. He is from what farmers would call "run out stock".
He spent a lot of time not so long ago on the ex-British MPs site, repeating the same things, over and over, as he is here.
We need to try to feel compassion for him, since his family has essentially fallen off the edge of the periodic table. I'm not sure if he is able to notice that other people do not keep repeating themselves.
He is truly a sad case.
367.
Oh!! were not doing the guessing game = abuse from a lot of the posters.
What about adding a shill or two to the above questions please.
Sorry, Fishy, you forgot to phrase your inquiry in the form of a question.
if anyone wants to know why the general public has such a difficult time trusting the pro-vaccination crowd, maybe it would be worthwhile to read the following. quite naturally, when vaccines companies attempt to use biological weapons to kill upwards of 20,000,000 people, it becomes kind of difficult to trust that lobby/industry.
Vaccines as Biological Weapons? Live Avian Flu Virus Placed in Baxter Vaccine Materials Sent to 18 Countries:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/vaccines-as-biological-weapons-live-avian-f…
Prison Planet, like whale.to, treats The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as an authentic document. That destroys their credibility right there. And the original article is by Mike Adams of Natural News, who through ignorance or mendacity purports to explain skeptics' beliefs about vaccines and gets even the most easily researched part 100% wrong.
Aren't you embarrassed to use a source called "Prison Planet"?
http://www.outcastweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/tin-foil-hat.jpg
If your eating you museli spit it out before you choke.. Deers BMJ article is now (conflict of interest) flawed and will have to be withdrawn..Peer reviewed heee..heeee..heee!
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/01/harvey-marcovitch-and-brian-deers-in…
@OQF:
The GMC today finalized Wakefield's erasure from the medical register, so the "appeal" that he apparently filed but never pursued is concluded. So now what's preventing him from filing a libel suit? The provable truth of the BMJ articles?
That's it? Cuz John Stone on AoA says so? No AWOL/OQF, the editors had their eyes wide open and legal advise before publishing Deer's features. Oh, and it looks like Wankers will have plenty of time to file that libel suit given he doesn't have that pesky GMC appeal to distract him.
Back to the guessing game. Bloggers on here give abuse for the guessing game.
I was looking through articles today for libel r.e Dr Wakefield (Wankers to you) just as it happens, along with other libel bits I found the article below Deer uses the word "changed" now i donât see any proof in all the papers Deer has written since the article below was printed to prove that Wakefield changed anything? hats just one snippet ,more to follow..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683671.e…
From The Sunday Times
February 8, 2009
MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism
Brian Deer
THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.
Two things you have to understand. First of all, the article doesn't say he changed the records, it says he changed the results. Secondly, your attacks on Brian Deer are meaningless, the physical evidence, in the form of the actual records and Wakefield's false report, is still there.
Queer Fish
Constantly having to alter your diversionary tactics must be ever so frustrating, not to mention tiring.
Poor fish
Oh and someone needs to also tell you that your favourite parrot is...really...seriously...well it is dead dearheart.
I got a lot of joy and satisfaction out of watching those two (very good) interviews. I am hopeful the momentum of this story keeps building, and that parents take this valuable chance to educate themselves. This story could be the tipping point for parents who were considering not vaccinating their children, to reconsider where those fears about autism came from, since I know (from those I've spoken to) that many have no idea where the idea originated.
As a mum of an autistic 5 year old, who has the vaccinations due soon for my 1 year old, I too find it very reassuring. I know the science, I know there is no proven link, but your emotional reaction as a parent can still niggle at you with "what ifs", especially when you already have one child with autism. We were always going to vaccinate our youngest son, but the latest revelations make that decision a much less anxious one.
377.Who said changed records ?Change reqires proof Deer has supplied zilch,zero,nil..
378.Diversionary tactic...what you on man?I replied to ScienceMom she raised libel..
If you want a change of tac ..just came out today shh, dont tell Messiah Deer..
January 20, 2011
The Great Pretender: Brian Deer's Wakefield Soap Opera
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/01/the-great-pretender-brian-deers-wake…
By Martin J Walker MA.
Oh yes Iâm the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Pretending that Iâm doing well (ooh ooh)
My need is such I pretend too much
Oh yes Iâm the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Adrift in a world of my own (ooh ooh)
Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when I feel what my heart can't conceal
Buck Ram[1]
With the growth of corporations and democracy there came
a vast growth in corporate propaganda as a means of defending
corporate interests against democracy.
Alex Carey[2]
Without a story to explain ourselves we are nothing.
Tariq Miah[3]
Speaking to a well regarded European writer the other day, I heard the words, 'But Deer came from nowhere, he is not a journalist of any note, he is not really a journalist is he?' hearing this and other remarks, it can only be described as unfortunate that neither those who question vaccine safety or those of us who have campaigned for vaccine damaged children have made no real attempt to investigate Brian Deer's contact with the pharmaceutical industry. On occasions I have been disturbed by the off-the-cuff allegations and ad hominem attacks made against Deer, this is not because he is not the most loathsome of characters but because without real investigations and properly constructed evidence we will never be able to free ourselves from the lingering foul smell which emanates from his presence in this conflict.
READ MORE FOLLOW THE LINK ABOVE,GREAT, ISN`T IT FANTASTIC.
Gary Null Show ,listen to Isabella Thomas,Jackie Fletcher and Clifford ..
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-gary-null-show-wnye/
I got a lot of joy and satisfaction out of watching those two (very good) interviews. I am hopeful the momentum of this story keeps building, and that parents take this valuable chance to educate themselves. This story could be the tipping point for parents who were considering not vaccinating their children, to reconsider where those fears about autism came from, since I know (from those I've spoken to) that many have no idea where the idea originated.
As a mum of an autistic 5 year old, who has the vaccinations due soon for my 1 year old, I too find it very reassuring. I know the science, I know there is no proven link, but your emotional reaction as a parent can still niggle at you with "what ifs", especially when you already have one child with autism. We were always going to vaccinate our youngest son, but the latest revelations make that decision a much less anxious one.
were not doing the guessing game
I got a lot of joy and satisfaction out of watching those two (very good) interviews. I am hopeful the momentum of this story keeps building, and that parents take this valuable chance to educate themselves. This story could be the tipping point for parents who were considering not vaccinating their children, to reconsider where those fears about autism came from, since I know (from those I've spoken to) that many have no idea where the idea originated.
As a mum of an autistic 5 year old, who has the vaccinations due soon for my 1 year old, I too find it very reassuring. I know the science, I know there is no proven link, but your emotional reaction as a parent can still niggle at you with "what ifs", especially when you already have one child with autism. We were always going to vaccinate our youngest son, but the latest revelations make that decision a much less anxious one.
I got a lot of joy and satisfaction out of watching those two (very good) interviews. I am hopeful the momentum of this story keeps building, and that parents take this valuable chance to educate themselves. This story could be the tipping point for parents who were considering not vaccinating their children, to reconsider where those fears about autism came from, since I know (from those I've spoken to) that many have no idea where the idea originated.
As a mum of an autistic 5 year old, who has the vaccinations due soon for my 1 year old, I too find it very reassuring. I know the science, I know there is no proven link, but your emotional reaction as a parent can still niggle at you with "what ifs", especially when you already have one child with autism. We were always going to vaccinate our youngest son, but the latest revelations make that decision a much less anxious one.
I got a lot of joy and satisfaction out of watching those two (very good) interviews. I am hopeful the momentum of this story keeps building, and that parents take this valuable chance to educate themselves. This story could be the tipping point for parents who were considering not vaccinating their children, to reconsider where those fears about autism came from, since I know (from those I've spoken to) that many have no idea where the idea originated.
As a mum of an autistic 5 year old, who has the vaccinations due soon for my 1 year old, I too find it very reassuring. I know the science, I know there is no proven link, but your emotional reaction as a parent can still niggle at you with "what ifs", especially when you already have one child with autism. We were always going to vaccinate our youngest son, but the latest revelations make that decision a much less anxious one.
I got a lot of joy and satisfaction out of watching those two (very good) interviews. I am hopeful the momentum of this story keeps building, and that parents take this valuable chance to educate themselves. This story could be the tipping point for parents who were considering not vaccinating their children, to reconsider where those fears about autism came from, since I know (from those I've spoken to) that many have no idea where the idea originated.
As a mum of an autistic 5 year old, who has the vaccinations due soon for my 1 year old, I too find it very reassuring. I know the science, I know there is no proven link, but your emotional reaction as a parent can still niggle at you with "what ifs", especially when you already have one child with autism. We were always going to vaccinate our youngest son, but the latest revelations make that decision a much less anxious one.
I have to go right back to the first comment and agree that in all his awesomeness Anderson Cooper has kept it on point and done his job as a journalist to keep the facts straight rather than muddied by propaganda.