Did the "CDC whistleblower" William W. Thompson apologize to Andrew Wakefield in a text message?

I agree that the content and everything around this is beyond strange, and good catch on the header. I'm somewhat naively surprised that the anti vaccine activists are accepting this do readily.

And here is a meme on it: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=762133880523290&substory_in…

Gah! I just noted another anomaly! Look at the battery. In mine it's black; in Andy's it's green. Oh wait. Never mind. That's what happens when you plug the iPhone in to charge, as indicated by the little "charge" symbol next to the battery in Andy's phone.

Sorry to say, but my iPhone with iOS 7.0.6 shows 'Back'.

Also, I doubt very much that his lawyer would be happy with his having communicated with Wakefield in a manner that could be publicized; my guess is that Morgan has Thompson under very strict instructions not to communicate with Brian Hooker, Andrew Wakefield, or anyone associated with them. Even if that weren’t the case, why would Thompson, having been burned once, give Wakefield a chance to burn him again?

You're assuming that Thompson is acting rationally here. That's probably true, but by no means guaranteed. Thompson would hardly be the first client to ignore the advice of his well-paid lawyer to STFU.

I would agree that this is less likely to be a genuine conversation with Thompson than either a Photoshop fake or the transcript of a conversation with a different William. For one thing, consider the source. But Thompson sounds naive and gullible enough to have done this, legal advice notwithstanding.

Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. The text exchange is still rather dodgy in many other ways.

I actually spent a lot of time searching the web for screenshots of iPhone messages with "Back" instead of "Messages," trying variations of all the versions of iOS 7 that existed, and I couldn't find it.

@Orac - the flow of those text messages seems "odd" since there is no context (why would he apologize to Wakefield?)

If Wakefield is asking "is Thompson's press release real?" And Thompson says yes, why is Wakefield saying Thank you?

Thank you for putting out a press release that calls me a liar (for having said that I had your permission to release your name)?

Again, the texts don't even make sense in the context by which they are given.....

mine alternates between "zurück" and "Nachrichten" (back and messages - my UK phone speaks German) depending on who sent the message. If it is someone in my address book, it says "Nachrichten", if it is a number I have not saved, it says "zurück" (so contrary to the above).
Also - why does "Andy" spell "honorable" without the British "u"?

@Johnny:

Actually, going back to the official Apple video introducing iOS 7, I saw that it's "Messages," not "Back":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT_OmTMwvZI

It's around 3:35 in.

So this is very strange. What country version of iOS 7 are you using?

mine alternates between “zurück” and “Nachrichten” (back and messages – my UK phone speaks German) depending on who sent the message. If it is someone in my address book, it says “Nachrichten”, if it is a number I have not saved, it says “zurück” (so contrary to the above).

Interesting. Mine doesn't do that. I tested. Maybe Andy's using a UK phone.

Erm, this blog seems comparative to conspiracy theory blogs where they pick everything apart in order to validate their wild theories.

The apparent mouse cursor on the first image also seems out of place on an iphone...

@Orac - when was the last time he was in the UK & why would he buy a phone there? The updates should be US anyway...

Again, those text messages might make a little bit of sense if it was sent to Hooker (since the case can be made that Dr. Thompson did mention the data issue that Hooker ultimately "found")...but they make no sense when applied to Wakefield.

@Katherine - perhaps you don't spend enough time at AoA....they are the ones claiming this is real, when there are good reasons to believe it isn't (or not being shown in context).

@Spectator: D'oh! How did I miss that?

OK, even if I'm wrong about the "Back"/"Message" thing (which seems not unlikely now, although I still haven't been able to find such a screenshot), that cursor in the first picture sure does suggest that this was made using a text exchange generator. There are no cursors on the iPhone. They're not needed, given that everything is down by touch. I mean, holy hell. If you're going to spoof a text exchange, at least make sure the computer cursor isn't in the photo...

Remember Betteridge's law of headlines

"Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'."

Orac: " he's got a lot of groupies.." Heh.

AND... Celia Farber! Holy Christmas!

Isn't it interesting how these folks run together?
Celia, Andy, Hooker, David Lewis, anti-vaxxers of all stripe, hiv/ aids denialists and what frigging else! Oh. Bolen.
( I once pointed out the PRN connection as several were guests and/ or had shows on PRN, e.g. Farber, Steve Kohn) There are even more but right now I have other work.

So far, searching my iPhone messages, I have seen a few with "Back" in the corner. Every single one of them, however, I didn't have a contact name, just a phone number. It's possible it switches to "Back" if there isn't room for "Messages".

Regardless, I am unable to accept this as evidence simply because we have no way to confirm its accuracy without a court-ordered search of Apple's database.

True blue all American here. My phone was bought and never been out of the US. But wait, there's more.

I'm an old guy, and I don't use SMS, so I don't have a lot of experience with it. The only text I get are free ones my carrier sends me to say my bill has been paid. Most of the time don't read them.

So I went back to look again to see if read vs unread vs previously read might make a difference, and it seems it does.

However, as I was zeroing in on it, I ran out of unread messages. So it's there sometimes, but not if your unread is zero.

There are no cursors on the iPhone. They’re not needed, given that everything is down by touch. I mean, holy hell. If you’re going to spoof a text exchange, at least make sure the computer cursor isn’t in the photo…

It could be a computer screen shot of the text hence the cursor.

I hadn't realized how many "fake text" sites there are out there....seems incredibly simple to fake whatever you'd like.

@Gray Falcon: Interesting. It seems that even if I'm wrong about the whole "Back"/"Message" thing, there's still plenty of reason to believe Andy's text exchange is fake on the basis of what you say. If there's "Back" there, it would seem, there should have been a phone number, not a name, at the top, in which case the screenshot must have been altered because in Andy's screenshot there's the name "William" there.

As an aside, I've checked many of the messages on my iPhone, and I don't see the word "Back" when it's just a phone number there not matched to a contact. Weird. I'm learning something I didn't know about iOS 7, not that I'm sure that it's of much use.

On the other hand, that first picture really is odd and suggestive that something weird is going on here that doesn't involve a real screenshot.

@Orac - figured it out.

If there is no "name" only a phone number, it says "Back"..if it has a contact name, it will say messages.

That, by itself, shows that the message above is fake - since it would say "Messages" because of the contact name being given as William.

Ta Da!

@Science Mom- Why would someone photograph a screenshot?

Heh. Maybe I'm correct, just for the wrong reason. :-)

"I know you mean it and i am grateful to know your more personally."

Why didn't the "i" autocorrect to "I"?

^ "you" not "your"
Why can't I type correctly?

Want to ask a few questions...

Why did Wakefield put his name in the text? What good would that possibly do? Obviously it's coming from him as per the text conversation?

Not sure if this applies to iOS since I don't use it, but in Android, if you change a contact's name, the header will change. This is always good for a joke when we have an existing conversation with someone like mom or dad asking if you're coming home for dinner, and you change the name in the contacts to something like "Mick Jagger" and suddenly it looks like Mick is inviting you to dinner.

Also, why would Andrew Wakefield have Dr. William Thompson in his contacts as "William?"

Just my thinking here.

@Chemomo:

The i is to make it look more legit- not too perfectly polished.
Just like his project had 8 of 12 subjects not 11 of 12.

I wonder why there's such a gap between the comments at 5:55 and 7:37--that "I forgive you complete and without any bitterness" seems to come out of nowhere, hours later. makes me wonder if additional texts to and from William made between 6:00 and 7:30 were deleted to create this apparently seamless conversation.

Ooops! Chemmomo.

I hate to say it, but I think you're struggling here. You're claiming that Wakefield would validate a fake text exchange contained in a screenshot.

I've never thought he was bright, but it sounds more than a little far-fetched to think he would supplant my 86 page declaration describing his research misconduct, with a piece of artwork that a seven-year-old could grasp. After all, it's not like Dr Thompson will not get his moment in the spotlight.

Given Dr Thompson's apparent agony that he may have contributed to the fall of Andrew Wakefield, maybe I could step in as his locum priest and assure him that he had nothing to do with it. Maybe he could get advice from the lawyer you mentioned as to whether all this is just made up:

http://briandeer.com/solved/slapp-amended-declaration.pdf

If you're going to recreate the message above - it looks like this may do the trick:

http://www.ios7text.com/

Also, Chemmo is right, the iPhone would always autocorrect the i as I....

Assuming it's a shot of an actual iPhone, of course

I kinda agree that this is a little like conspiracy theorists at work - pretty much needs one or other of the parties to confirm/deny then we'll know -- er oh wait...

Still, gotta have my ha'pennies worths - why does he sign the second text 'Andy.'

Anyway - wether real or not - its the most brown-nosed vomit worthy txt exchange I've seen in a while

Also, why would Andrew Wakefield have Dr. William Thompson in his contacts as “William?”

I can answer that one. In the iPhone preferences, under Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, there is an option for "Short Name," which tells the phone how to shorten names that are in the contacts. Options include:

1. First name and last initial
2. First initial and last name
3. First name only
4. Last name only

There is also an option to "Prefer Nicknames." There is a field in entries in the Contacts app for "Nickname," such as if you have a pet name for your wife or girlfriend or your friend has a nickname that is commonly used. If that option is turned on and there is a nickname in the Contact, then the phone will use that preferentially.

If Short Name is turned on and set to "First Name Only," then even if William Thompson's full name is in the Contacts app database, Messages will only show "William."

I think you are reading too much into the discrepancies. Yes, the screenshot was displayed on another system and photographed, and the photograph was sent, but without knowing the context this might be nefarious or innocent. I just looked on my iPhone, and indeed some messages say "Messages" and some say "Back". Not all messages without a contact say "Back", but no message with a contact doesn't say "Messages". However, if I have a message that is not in my contact list displayed, and it says "Back", if I then press "Contact" and create a contact, when I return to the message, it still says "Back" but the number is now replaced with the name I just created. This suggests that the message was originally from a number and a contact was made just then. This is another reason why the picture of a display of a screenshot is probably innocent, namely if I was trying to fake a text exchange, I would just do it with someone else and change the contact when I took the screenshot. No image editing required, not possibility of a discrepancy. Which also shows us that the screenshot is no proof at all.

Faking a text message, which would surely be refuted at some point, if not real, seems very bizarre. I think the 'i' wouldn't necessarily autocorrect if it came from Thompson's phone and it wasn't an iPhone. Also, I'm not sure the cursor is massively suspicious - it's just a screenshot of the conversation from a computer screen - perhaps Wakefield took a photo of the screen to make it seem (somehow) more genuine, rather than just the screenshot as a raw image. The content of the conversation is the most dodgy thing to me, the rest is all explainable in some way.

That may not be a mouse cursor, that's where the "GPS in use" icon appears on my iPhone. It's the identical shape, though my icon is solid, not hollow.

To add further confusion, I don't know how Macs do screen shots, but Windows screenshots don't include the cursor.

Also, a "friend" of yours now has a screenshot featuring "Back" on their Facebook page.

On top of your text in the middle lower part of the screen? I've never seen my GPS in use icon there!

Because the "iMessage" is located at the bottom, it shows that both Wakefield and Thompson have iPhones (otherwise it would just say Text Message)....

Again, i's always autocorrect on iPhones.

Note: The blacked out part of the screen shot was a number. As soon as I added the number to the contacts, it displays the contact name instead of the number, and the "Back" changes to "Messages".

The GPS thing could be a result of the device management software my firm is using.

"To add further confusion, I don’t know how Macs do screen shots, but Windows screenshots don’t include the cursor."

Its a photograph of the screen taken with an iPhone. You can see that in the exif data.

Nope, you're right, I was looking at the wrong arrow. That IS a mouse arrow.

Karl, third-party screen shot programs will show the cursor.

It seems silly to try to determine whether or not this test message exchange is real based on what you can see on the screens given that:
1. It is child's play to fake this. (See comment #32, and there are no doubt other ways)
2. There is no way to validate the text exchange without access to the servers they traveled on (as pointed out in #17 and never going to happen)
In addition, Wakefield is already a proven liar. Why wouldn't his acolytes be the same?

There is no way to validate the text exchange without access to the servers they traveled on

Or a forensic analysis of Andy Wakefield's and/or William Thompson's iPhone. Although it's been pointed out that, contrary to its claims that it cannot, Apple can, if it wishes, retrieve iMessages, it is apparently not trivial for it to do, given end-to-end encryption iMessage uses. Obviously, it would take a subpoena to get Apple to do that, which just isn't likely to happen. Nor is Wakefield or Thompson likely to give up his phone for a thorough forensic analysis.

Because the “iMessage” is located at the bottom, it shows that both Wakefield and Thompson have iPhones (otherwise it would just say Text Message)….

So does the blue color of the word balloons containing Wakefield's texts. :-)

"The GPS thing could be a result of the device management software my firm is using." -Nevermind: It can be very confusing to reply to things without rereading the whole thread since your last post. :)

Also, I’m not sure the cursor is massively suspicious – it’s just a screenshot of the conversation from a computer screen – perhaps Wakefield took a photo of the screen to make it seem (somehow) more genuine, rather than just the screenshot as a raw image.

Yes, looking at the high resolution version of the image, I can now see pixels going off the sides and bottom of the image.

"third-party screen shot programs will show the cursor."

Many can, yes, but the built in screenshot function of Windows used by the majority Windows users won't.

So, let me see if I get this story straight:

Wakefield didn't know how to take a screenshot from his iPhone, so how did he get it to the computer screen that he took the picture from?

I think we need to play "the Man from Missouri" on this one...if Wakefield wants to prove that this message change is real, then he needs to show the entire conversation.

And he also should really release the unedited audio, as well - since it seems that Thompson is okay with that now....

"Wakefield didn’t know how to take a screenshot from his iPhone, so how did he get it to the computer screen that he took the picture from?"

Wakefield emailed it to that blogger. She took a picture of her screen. She's since added a copy of the screenshot to her blog.

I don't understand how anyone can be saying "oh, that mouse cursor isn't that suspicious, it's just a screenshot of the conversation from the computer screen" - that doesn't make any sense.

If you had real evidence of something, and wanted to convince others of its reality, you'd want to collect the best evidence of it happening - no unnecessary steps.

So for instance, suppose you had a text message conversation that you wanted to show people had happened, and you didn't actually know how to take a screenshot of it with your phone. You might settle for grabbing some other camera and shooting a photo of the screen. So far so good.

But the iPhone wouldn't generate a mouse cursor. Neither would the camera you were taking the picture with. The least elaborate scenario in which the cursor gets superimposed on the picture is one where the entire conversation that was to be recorded was already captured in a computer and being displayed on a screen - and then someone got out their camera and took a fuzzy picture of that.

Why?

If you have the image saved on a computer, you can share it endlessly and have no loss of fidelity. Why on earth would anyone who had real evidence and wanted to share it in order to convince people deliberately introduce a LARGE amount of image degradation by photographing the image on the computer screen?

You don't do that if you want to convince people of the truth by providing them with the best evidence. You would do it, however, if the only evidence you had was sketchy and you needed to hide how sketchy it was.

Why do you think it is impossible (in today's day and age, with Mega-Mega Pixel digital cameras & mobile devices), to catch non-blurry pictures of UFOs and Bigfoot?

For example the same reason you mention - they have something to hide. If the image was already on a computer, why not just email it - why take a picture?

Something is rotten (again) with this one....

Wakefield emailed it to that blogger. She took a picture of her screen. She’s since added a copy of the screenshot to her blog.

Exactly, it doesn't make any sense.

Wakefield sends Farber a photo image by email.

She wants to show the world this photo image.

So she takes a photo of it on her screen??

And then posts that photo?

I'm sorry, I do not believe it. I believe in people who don't know how to do screenshots. I believe in people who don't know how to get a photo onto their blog. I just do not believe in people who can figure out how to take a picture file produced by their own camera and get it onto their blog but can't figure out how to do it with a picture file provided to them via e-mail.

@Science Mom- Why would someone photograph a screenshot?

I wouldn't deign to even try and answer that given the cast of clowns involved. But the one with the cursor in it is highly pixelated and looks like a photo of a computer.

Yup. That's why I must beg to differ with Mr. Deer on this one. As I've pointed out multiple times, I could be off-base on this one. On the other hand, no one that I've been able to find has discussed these issues online other than believers in the vaccine-autism notion (I refuse to dignify it by calling it a hypothesis anymore), who are lapping up this text message exchange in spite of the multiple reasons to doubt its authenticity or, at the very least, to doubt whether it's conveying the whole story.

At best (for Wakefield), it's real (albeit almost certainly highly cherry picked). In that case, why e-mail it to Farber, and why would Farber need to take a picture of her computer screen when she has the PNG file of the screenshot, which could be shared or posted as desired? (iPhones produce PNG files of screenshots.) At worst, it's a fake, either made with an iPhone text message generator or by Wakefield or someone else having a text exchange and then changing the contact name to "William."

Hey, worst case scenario, I get a little mud on my face, but such is life. I'm willing to risk being wrong sometimes.

I've studied computer forensics. Small details like a mouse pointer appearing on a shot of an iPhone can make or break a case.

@Orac - perhaps it would force Wakefield to release the entire chain of text messages to provide context.

Again, the disjointed nature of the conversation doesn't even make sense in the context in which Wakefield is giving...

Perhaps this might also force Thompson to either confirm that he has been in communication with Wakefield (thus weakening his case even further and potentially jeopardizing his status as a "whistleblower" under the statutes) or disavow any knowledge of this communication - thus declaring it to be a fake.

Who knows - but at the end of the day, the Anti-Vax nuts are just damaging their own credibility further (if that was even possible) by this drib / drab method of releasing information.

Why would “Doctor” Wakefield send the screenshot to The Truth Barrier, and not, say, AoA or Hooker? I don't follow the anti-vax people in great detail, and I thought I knew most of the players. I'd never heard of The Truth Barrier, until now. If “Doctor” Wakefield did send it to someone else first, who, and why sent it to The Truth Barrier?

I don't really care if it's fake or real -- my opinion of the parties involved is already low enough that neither option really hurts them. But the photo of a screen showing a text message chain . . . well. I like to read the blog <a href="http://thedailywtf.com/"thedailywtf.com and there's a running gag involving this sort of not-quite-understanding-how-the-technology-works thing, which they call the "wooden table approach". Here's the original instance of it: Web 0.1

And, naturally, I have failed my HTML. :-P There's poetry there....

What happens on your iPhone if you are carrying on a text conversation that runs to multiple screens ?
Is it possible that iPhone uses "back" to take you back the start of the message session ?
Just wondering. I only have an old, outdated phone, not a smartphone.

@DLC - you just have to scroll back up with your finger....

Lots of really good points raised here that bring a lot of suspicion on the validity of the conversation....only Thompson now can confirm or deny in a way that would put this to rest.

Its a photograph of the screen taken with an iPhone. You can see that in the exif data.

Taken in Manhattan at 1:12 p.m. on September 2. Where did wakerscreenshot-393x700.jpg come from? Farber writes "the second one is a JPG, here," but delivers photo-3.png. The JPG was created by Adobe Fireworks CS6.

Bit strange that quite a highly educated Brit would prefer "honorable" over "honourable".

What I don't understand if how an epidemiological study that finds a non-significant association between autism and MMR vaccines given in a specific time frame, in African-American boys, *could* possibly validate Andrew Wakefield's 'case series' of an imaginary bowel syndrome in non-African American children. Forget whether the text messages are real, I can't even follow the logic. The two studies are not even remotely similar, except in that they both contain the words 'MMR' and 'autism'.

And even if Thompson believes in his heart that the DeStefano et al study was carried out wrongly, that has exactly fuck-all to do with the fact that Wakefield's paper was fraudulent. Does Thompson think the GMC investigation was some kind of Big Pharma cover-up? No study, no matter how much it didn't follow its own protocol, can validate Wakefield, BECAUSE WAKEFIELD MADE UP DATA. Even if the CDC turned around tomorrow and said, oops, yes, all autism is caused by MMR, it still wouldn't make Andrew Wakefield less of a fraud. The idea that the DeStefano paper could've saved Wakefield's career is simply delusional.

"but delivers photo-3.png. "

She changed the photo she had there. The original photo there was

http://truthbarrier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/photo-3-576x1024.png

It's still on her server, but she appears to have pulled it.

It has been commented online that the dimensions of that first photo don't make sense. They don't match an iPhone screenshot.

And, why title an image "photo-3-576x1024.png" anyway? Why not take the title the iPhone gives you?

Re: "I wonder why there’s such a gap between the comments at 5:55 and 7:37–that “I forgive you complete and without any bitterness” seems to come out of nowhere, hours later."

Not really so implausible. Wakefield sends "That was the right and honorable thing to do", sets down his phone, and goes off to dinner at 6:00pm. A minute or two later, Thompson sends "I apologize again". Wakefield doesn't see it until he comes back from dinner at 7:57, when he picks up his phone, sees the (two hour old) message, and replies "I forgive you completely ...".

Bit strange that quite a highly educated Brit would prefer “honorable” over “honourable”.

Unless he's been thoroughly Americanized in his more than a decade living in Texas, I guess.

I'm on an iPhone iOS 7.1.2. If someone texts from an email account the header when reading the text states "back ". If it's a SMS from a phone, the header reads messages.

None of this validates the conversation which to me reads utterly fake. But maybe Andy has got so used to fawning admirers that he now thinks it's how people speak.

-hi Andy you are completely correct I utterly validate you.

- gee thanks.

- no you were so totally rite and awesome

Do people really text like that? Also why no mention of 'Oh by the way that press release where I make you look like a jerk - The Man Made Me Do it!' as it would be likely to enter the conversation given the alleged texts were sent on the day of the release.

Personally I think Andy created an email account, christened it William and sent himself some texts.

Either way, if this is what Andy considers solid evidence these days, it shows pure desperation. iPhone screenshots??? The fact he's even publicising this shows the depth to which he has fallen.

I meant to write--she seems to have pulled it from the blog article. The original is still, for now, on her server.

Notice that the border has been changed. It was black or very dark purple originally. Now it's blue.

Why is she editing this? What's the border supposed to look like?

Sorry---the borders are added by the exif site.

Honestly, though, does it really matter whether this exchange is real or not? Even if Dr. Thompson genuinely feels guilty about not publishing that data b/c he believes that it was clinicaly significant and/or that it would have validated Wakefield's fraudulent study, he's still wrong, for all of the reasons Orac (and others) have already discussed.

"I’m sorry, I do not believe it. I believe in people who don’t know how to do screenshots. I believe in people who don’t know how to get a photo onto their blog. I just do not believe in people who can figure out how to take a picture file produced by their own camera and get it onto their blog but can’t figure out how to do it with a picture file provided to them via e-mail"

I've seen people do a lot of strange things with computers in my career, like print a document, fax that hard copy, then scan it back in after faxing, and print that scanned image out and file that hard copy in a filing cabinet, and I still can't make sense of that photo of a PC screen showing an iPhone screenshot.

Any bets on when the first version (photo-3-576×1024.png) get's pulled from her wordpress media library (and, hence, the link stops working)?

"Bit strange that quite a highly educated Brit would prefer “honorable” over “honourable”."

And "I forgive you complete" and not "completely".

@Karl

I'm old enough to remember when some people would insist they had to staple the floppy disk to any paperwork it came with before filing it.

Ignore my comment. I obviously can't read.

can't remember where, but I recall seeing someone post a grainy camera-taken picture of a screen to document 'proof of something', claiming that somehow the camera shot was more reliable as 'proof'. A simple screenshot could be easily edited/faked, but the photograph would show more evidence if someone later edited it...

or, in short: someone doesn't understand technology.

Perhaps honourable got auto-corrected to honorable? The complete/completely thing is more suspicious. Perhaps someone other than Wakefield faked the messages. I think we cannot tell who was driving this clown car.

After doing some testing, I can't get my iPhone not to auto-correct "i" to I, unless I turn auto-correct off.....

I'm not at my computer, but can someone do us all a favor? It's a long shot, but can someone use google images to look for this picture and see if one of the image creators has it? I found a fake church announcement that way the other day. It requires time and patience. I'll get on this when I get home tonight too.

Orac:
The 'grainy photo' is VERY weird.

The most notable thing is the moire pattern that appears in the image. This is caused by the pixel grid of the camera sensor not alligning with the pixel grid of the display. However, it also depends on how the display technology works. I don't have any kind of Apple device with a 'Retina' screen, so I can't say for sure what difference that would make, but IN GENERAL, you only see that kind of moire when rephotographing a CRT display (which has a more distinctive separated dot pattern, and in which only a single pixel has it's phosphors lit by the electron scan beam at any moment) and NOT on any kind of LCD display (which has a smoother blend between pixels, which all stay lit more or less all the time). Moreover, LCD screen are flat, and the photo shows curvature in the bar at the bottom, consistent with it having been displayed on a CRT.

The next weird thing, is the resolution of the 'original' iPhone screen. It's a very blocky lo-res version.

The third Weird thing is that if you DL the image from the Farber site, and adjust the levels, you'll see
remnant detail in the apparently black borders. Note especially that the visible bits of text are considerably sharper than the text in the screen-cap.

There's also EXIF data in the file, indicating the photo was taken with an iPhone 4S. Google Maps identifies the GPS coordinates logged in the photo as corresponding to 214 W 102nd St, New York, NY 10025, (an apartment building). I have no idea how accurate Google Maps might be at picking out a specific address from the GPS data. The EXIF indicates the photo was taken on 9/2/2014 at 5:12PM GMT. (EXIF data can he hacked of course, but not that many regular folks know how to do that.)

The screen-cap posted on Ferber's site is 1136X640, indicating it was captured on an iPhone 5. There are no tell-tale signs of 'Photoshopping' in the screen cap, though given that nature of the bit-map, an undetectable forgery would be possible. However, as already noted here, it's easy enough to just create a text exchange with some other "William."

The 'grainy photo' is in the native resolution of the iPhone 4s, it does not appear to have been cropped and/or resized. It's possible to reframe an image somewhat in Photoshop (i.e. zoom in a little) and then resize it back to the native resolution without an obvious loss of resolution, but I doubt that was done here. A more likely manipulation would be a simple Photoshop adjustment to make the background darker than the screen-cap in the foreground. I would guess that was indeed done.

SO, WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE? With the appropriately DeStafano-ish qualifiers, the looks to be:
1) a screen cap was taken on an iPhone 5 (which could have been anywhere)
2) that file was probably reduced in size, lowering it's resolution
3) that file then found its way to New York City, where it was opened in a computer (probably a Mac)
4) the Mac video-out was hooked up to an old-school big-screen CRT TV/Monitor, probably to make the image big enough to be rephotographed tightly.
5) the monitor display was photographed with the camera of an iPhone 4s.
6) the iPhone photo was captured to a computer, opened in a photo editor, the background significantly darkened, and saved with no further adjustment.
7) That photo was compressed into a bandwidth-friendly JPEG, and uploaded to the Web.

SO, WHY WOULD ANYBODY GO THROUGH ALL THAT?
I gotta get some lunch, so I'll have to come back, and I need some time to mull it over anyway.
................
Another separate weird thing: When you look at the full-res screencap Orac posted above, but on the Ferber site, it appears to extend lower than it does here, and to contain the text "Text exchange between Dr. Andrew Wakefield and Dr. William Thompson, Aug 27, 2014." That's not part of the actual screen-cap. It's HTML. The screen-cap image is inside an HTML table with it's background set to blend exactly with the gray behind the camera logo and 'Send' at the bottom of the screen cap. Thus, the site designers have clearly attempted to give a false impression that the names and date are part of the screen-cap (otherwise those grays would not match exactly), but they didn't actually Photoshop the image, so they can say "it was just a design choice by our webmaster!"

#85 good luck with searching. Apparently if you look hard enough there's measles RNA in the messages

sadmar,

the most simple answer would be that the people involved were concerned that someone would look through metadata...just as is being done. People who don't really understand metadata, but know it exists.

So, they take a picture of a computer screen. That way they get the image and no metadata.

Then they take the picture, open it and save it to try to remove the metadata. Why they adjusted the size at the same time? Maybe they thought they needed to do something to remove the metadata.

Of course, this begs the question, if you have an image that you think might have metadata saying "Andy's iPhone, legitimate screenshot", why worry about the metadata?

I gave up trying to understand Wakefield years ago. I can't bend my mind into such a logical pretzel and abandon ethics.

The 576x1024 .png is just a 90% reduction of the 640x1136 original. This may have been done automatically by the web-authoring software...

OR, it could have something to do with the illusion I noted in the last paragraph of the post above.

@Lowri,
Not only that, but you can see the measles virus with a pill camera, too.

So, they take a picture of a computer screen. That way they get the image and no metadata.

Except that what was accomplished was taking something with no metadata (it doesn't look like iPhones embed an XMP block into screen-shot PNGs) and coverting it into something that does.

I'm calling a Hanlon's Razor on this one:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

There may be a perfectly stupid reason for the cursor and screenshots - Farber.
There's no telling what convoluted path an ignoramus will take to accomplish something rational people see as completely straightforward.

At this point I'm classifying Thomson as Unreliable and Sympathetic to the Anti-vaccine delusion.
Given his press release wherein he makes thinly veiled accusations of scientific incompetence (minimally) or outright fraud (maximally) against his coauthors when he stated, "I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article ...", and "I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.".
He then shuts down public discussion/rebuttal of those accusations by his coauthors by stating, "I will not be answering further questions at this time." and lawyering up.
That, to me, is about as mature as some playground wussy pointing a finger at his teammates and shouting, "They're the ones who broke your window Mr. Wilson.", then taking his ball and running home.
Add to that his admission of communicating with Hooker the past year and, to me, it becomes clear you're not dealing with a very rational or savvy person.

As someone in an earlier Orac article comments noted, Thompson is really a psychologist, not a statistician. He should be versed in statistics, but maybe that wasn't his strong suit. It is quite possible he is just too ignorant of statististics (cf. Hooker) to understand that he is wrong and really doesn't know what he is talking about.

In my opinion:
He is another Dunning-Kruger professional who thinks he's more competent and knowledgeable than he is, and is now ignorantly spouting his idiocy to the detriment of all.
He really believes he is smarter and than his collective coauthors when the opposite is true.
I also get the creepy feeling from his writing of a smarmy - "I'm more moral than my coworkers and the organisation." attitude.
This guy is a disaster. Just plain bad. He's dangerous because he's dumb and in a position of responsibility.
He's presently gone into seclusion, but if any of these later revelations are even slightly true, he may come back out feeling the zeal of a delusional evangelist who has the dubious protection of "whistleblower" lawyers to keep the heat from getting too intense lest he cry "professional oppression!".

joseph,

Bit strange that quite a highly educated Brit would prefer “honorable” over “honourable”.

I'm a moderately educated Brit, and I try to use US English when communicating with Americans.

As for why someone would photograph a computer screen with a screenshot, perhaps it's someone who doesn't know how to use image editing software (plenty of people don't) and who wants to omit part of the screenshot, a phone number for example. Is that possible?

Any bets on when the first version (photo-3-576×1024.png) get’s pulled from her wordpress media library (and, hence, the link stops working)?

I suppose one could easily enough wget the whole thing, but I have things to do.

RE: cursor (no longer present on updated post)

Confused... says:
September 2, 2014 at 6:20 pm
Why not post the actual screenshot? Why a picture of your computer screen?

REPLY
Celia Farber says:
September 2, 2014 at 6:42 pm
Done!

I suspect this image may be the original one used to fake this exchange. I could be wrong but the sizes of the dialog balloons is remarkably similar.

Also, look at the different blue colors in the different balloons, with the bottom one being a brighter blue. Unless this is a feature of i-phones I think I've nailed this one.

"Except that what was accomplished was taking something with no metadata (it doesn’t look like iPhones embed an XMP block into screen-shot PNGs) and coverting it into something that does."

I did say I don't think they know what they are doing, or I should have if I didn't.

While there are metadata in that iPhone picture of a screen, it isn't the original metadata.

I suspect the people involved didn't know how to see or edit metadata but realized it was there. Hence this odd way of scrubbing the original metadata.

Or, they are just doing very strange things and making things more complicated than they need to be. She's running a blog. She knows how to upload pictures. Why not upload the original instead of the iphone-takes-picture-of-computer picture?

Sadmar

"The 576×1024 .png is just a 90% reduction of the 640×1136 original. This may have been done automatically by the web-authoring software…"

wordpress doesn't do that. At least modern wordpress doesn't.

@Kreb - holy-crap.....

Very, very similar - though there are differences....though the differences could be explained by using a template & making changes via a program.

I. Rony
No that's not it. The raw screenshot contains no metadata. There's nothing to scrub. The photo of the TV DOES contain metadata. Whoever took the photo had to have the screen-cap to take the photo, and it would have been far easier to just include the screen-cap on the page (even if it was a reduced version, it would still look better than the re-photographed screen). A Google link lists Farber's street address as 216 W 102nd, so we can guess she took the photo in her home. I would guess she used an old CRT big-screen TV already connected to a computer for the purpose of playing video games. (Farber has a son who would be 19-20 now, but a gaming set-up could have been created for him when he was younger.)

However, it's extremely unlikely any kind of media professional would be using a CRT for a standard computer monitor. So, other than relative size (an iPhone camera has a wide angle lens, so it's not going to fill the frame with small things), why use the CRT instead of the LCD she's almost sure to have?

All I can think of is that a TV image looks like a TV image. A computer graphic embedded in a website is temporally static, permanent, timeless. A photograph testifies to the moment it was snapped, and we still read TV images as 'being broadcast right now.' So re-photographing the screen-cap makes it look more mediated, like appearing 'in the media', more like 'breaking news!' a scoop! ???

I think someone used a stock image of an I-Phone screen to create the Wakefield texts image. The image I have taken from Twitter is, I think, an April Fool joke that also fakes an I-Phone screen-shot. The dialog balloons have been altered a little but the smoking gun is the brighter blue color on the bottom blue balloon, unless I-Phones do that for some reason.

Here's a side-by-side comparison.

Recently there was some conspiracy theorist who took pictures of some web pages his computer screen claiming this "proved" these were real screen captures and not photshopped because no one could ever emulated that really crappy pattern you get when someone takes a lousy picture of a CRT. All I could think was "why not get out your watercolors and paint us a picture of your computer screen?"

I'm wondering if someone thought the same here when they took pictures of a computer screen showing the purported "conversation".

Kreb - those images are SMALL! Any chance you can make them bigger?

"he raw screenshot contains no metadata. There’s nothing to scrub"

I know that. And you know that. I suspect that until she read this discussion Farber didn't know that. She knew it existed, she didn't know how to see or edit it. So she tried to find a way to put up a picture without the original metadata. That's the point I'm trying to make.

It's speculation, but it explains the very strange behavior of taking a picture of a screen.

By the way, you are posting too much information about her. We don't need to know that for this discussion. No reason to post such details.

Sorry, posted a thumbnail by mistake. Try here: http://twitpic.com/eba1ut

Those aren't that close, to my eye. And why photoshop when one can fake a message so easily on the web or by playing with an iphone.

I haven't found a site that can recreate the screenshot. The charging symbol, the bluetooth symbol.

If this is a fake it was likely done by someone on an iPhone.

Could be these messages are real. Could be that Thompson has really gone over. If so, I'd ask that he decline any further work in autism even though he's volunteered. People working on this shouldn't be doing so in order to repair anyone's reputation (as the text message to Carmel Wakefield supposedly states).

"I think I’ve nailed this one."

Sorry, Kreb. The images are way too different. The ballons are different sizes and cropped different by the header. The background behind the 'enter-message' field is different, and yes in all iPhones using the new version of the Message app, the blue balloons get progressively lighter as they scroll up the screen.

I did learn, though that the balloons are only blue if the Text was sent from another iPhone using the Apple Message app.

I have to confess that I think this is amongst the most barking discussions I've seen over vaccines in pretty much any forum.

Take a step back. Andrew Wakefield has only ever admitted that he is indeed the person in a videotape in which he, Andrew Wakefield, talks about buying blood from children at a birthday party.

All of the rest, he says, is a malicious fabrication, concocted for drug companies. As I wrote a few years ago: "He says he never claimed that the children had regressive autism, nor that he said they were previously normal. He never misreported or changed any findings in the study, and never patented a measles vaccine. None of the children were Barr’s clients before referral to the hospital, and he never received huge payments from the lawyer. There were no conflicts of interest. He is the victim of a conspiracy. He never linked autism with MMR."

And you think, after all that, he would step into the noose by endorsing a fake text exchange on a mobile phone? It would be bound to come out, and about 200 journalists would be upon it in about 25 minutes.

Having no dog in the causality race, I think betting is still open on the Brian Hooker story. Just because he's an obsessive and makes mistakes, it doesn't mean that in ten years harassing CDC he hasn't turned something up, even if it's not quite all he thinks.

In fact, given the scale of a government bureacracy like that, it would be more surprising if he didn't.

Those aren’t that close, to my eye.

The curvature of the top balloon is off, and the sentence fragment reinforces this. That would be a lot of Photoshopping detail.

And you think, after all that, he would step into the noose by endorsing a fake text exchange on a mobile phone?

Has he endorsed it? AoA claims to have "verified its authenticity" or something, but it's indisputable that Wakefield's comments to Jake are at odds with Thompson's statement to the world.

Yes, Wakefield endorses its veracity.

Could be my eyes are going, but when I pull up some recent exchanges on the iPhone 5c the bottom balloon is bluer and gets less blue as I scroll it up, so it could be a feature, or a bug.

KayMarie:

Your eyes are fine. It's a feature.

Brian Deer,

There's a reasonable chance this text exchange is real. There's also a chance it is fake.

Andy Wakefield isn't some James Bond like supervillian who never makes mistakes. He made a pretty good one with Matt Lauer. I'm sure you know the show. He said flat out that his patent had nothing to do with a vaccine. Sure he said this in the face of plain English on the patent saying that's what they intended to do.

And then the GMC hearing was held and it came out that he was planning on developing the vaccine aspect.

Let's look to recent history. Wakefield goes on Jake Crosby's blog and berates Jake for pointing out that Thompson didn't want to be named. Jake Crosby. Whose hard drive is filled with emails from everyone and Jake isn't ashamed to post them. A few days later Jake is actually proved right.

Wakefield has learned that within a certain community he has teflon armor. He could deny that he lives in Austin and no doubt some people would soon be asking how the government created phone records were manipulated to make it look like he's been there a decade.

Yeah, this "crowdsourcing the search for fraud" may be fruitless. But don't tell me that Andrew Wakefield is good at anything other than lying after being caught.

Besides the possibilities you mention, there are two other ones. Wakefield could be the victim of a hoax, by either (a) an anti-vaxer trying to make him feel happy and vindicated or (b) a non-scrupulous pro-science person trying to get him to publicize a fake exchange which would then be revealed in to make Wakefield look bad.

KayMarie,

My iPhone5c does the same; the balloon is darker on the bottom than on the the top.

Yes, Wakefield endorses its veracity.

I missed this. Does someone have a pointer?

(Note that I'm standing by the Helter Skelter proposal.)

@Narad

https://twitter.com/DrWakefield/status/506873389391568897

"Has he endorsed it?"

He tweeted it and I think put it on his facebook page.

Brian,

one more thing--Wakefield and Segal and others are pretty clear that they think very little of Thompson now. They've set him up to become one of their enemies. Even if Thompson came forward and said these were faked, Wakefield would just say, "See, he's gone back to the payroll of Big CDC".

Segal's recent statement includes " Above all, we don't want to lose sight of the fact that William Thompson was aware that young children’s lives were needlessly being destroyed"

and Wakefield on Jake's blog "Although it is a moot point, I remain perplexed as to quite why a man who participated in a prolonged scientific fraud – one that likely resulted in harm to many children – should merit anonymity on his terms. "

1) Which is it? Are Wakefield and Thompson in some sort of mutual admiration society or is Wakefield contemptuous of Thompson?

2) If Thompson says that Wakefield lied about the text messages, he's already set up to be discredited to Wakefield's audience. (which I know I covered above)

sadmar:

CRT screens offer better and more consistent color than LCD or LED-screens, and are sometimes used by graphic designers and such for design - but if that was the case here it would seem doubly odd that they posted a pic of the screen instead of the original screencap instead.

I go away for several hours and what do I find? Oh my.

I'll jettison my arts/advertising background for the moment and not make a call about the matchy-matchy issue as I have a headache and looking doesn't help it.

I put my faith in most humans' ( except the highest functioning ones and I'm even not so sure about them)
well-known tendency to behave very similarly over time:
so I ask-
who is Andy and what does he do? Why is he famous?
who is Celia and what does she do? Why is she famous?

I wouldn't trust either of them as far as I could throw them.

Since the brighter blue is a feature of the i-Phone, it seems my solution to the conundrum is wrong.

This may be of no importance, but it's a bless relief from all that MMR and thimerosal stuff.

@Annie: Thanks. It's certainly an odd way of going about things and seems to fall a bit short of explicitly stating that it's genuine.

Hmm. That's not a verified Twitter account, and Twitter often gets hacked, so I'm not entirely convinced.

It looks legit to me, Krebiozen

https://mobile.twitter.com/DrWakefield

If it's fake, someone has been faking a long time.

I still gotta wonder, why did "Doctor" Wakefield release this thru some backwater, mostly not anti-vax blog, and not something with a little more impact, like AoA?

So the lying liar who lies "verified its veracity".

Yeah, I'm sold.

iPhone 5, OS7.1.1

I only get "Back" as an option when I don't have the person in my contacts list AND it's not an iMessage (which this clearly is).

That is indeed Andrew Wakefield's Twitter account. It went dead over a year ago, when apparently Andy got tired of Twitter, and was resurrected right about the time when Andy's first video with Brian Hooker was released.

As a side note, Wakefield has blocked the Twitter account of my not-so-super-secret alter ego under his real name.

And you think, after all that, he would step into the noose by endorsing a fake text exchange on a mobile phone? It would be bound to come out, and about 200 journalists would be upon it in about 25 minutes.

Except that no journalist, as far as I've been able to tell, has actually bothered to look into the authenticity of these texts. Have you? Have any of your journalist friends? I haven't even seen any bloggers looking into it except me, and now the commenters here who have gone one step beyond me, correcting my errors and finding things I missed. As some have said, I have just enough knowledge of how iPhones work and image file formats to be dangerous, but I'm not an expert. My noting of anomalies, however, did lead others more knowledgeable and skilled than I to think there might just be a rat here.

Mr. Deer, I think you overestimate Wakefield's importance, at least here in the States, where Wakefield is now such a fringe figure that the only journalists who care about him any more are antivaccine loons like Sharyl Attkisson. Such "journalists" are hardly likely to find anything that would call the text exchange into doubt. That's why only a lone pseudonymous blogger has even taken the time to look into this.

Tell you what, though. As I mentioned in the post itself, William Thompson's lawyer ignored my request to tell me whether such an exchange ever took place and, if so, whether it's being represented accurately. You're a real journalist. I am not. I'm just a blogger who's very good at commenting on medical pseudoscience and scientific papers. Perhaps if you contacted Thompson's lawyer he would answer. It's worth a try.

All I really want to know is whether this exchange happened the way it's being represented. For obvious reasons, I won't take Celia Farber's or Andrew Wakefield's word for it, any more than either of them would take my word for anything. And it matters. If that text exchange really did happen more ore less as advertised, then it changes my view of William Thompson from dupe of Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield to a dupe with serious antivaccine tendencies. That would change everything about how I look at this in the future.

Just for fun, to demonstrate it is quite easy to fake a text exchange like this (using GIMP), though it seems this one wasn't: http://twitpic.com/eba5m2

You're a bad, bad person. :-)

Perhaps if you contacted Thompson’s lawyer he would answer. It’s worth a try.

I strongly suspect that Mr. Deer has moved on from matters Wakefraud, aside from the vexatious litigation.

You've got to be kidding me. The author of the study comes out and says "I covered it up" and all you people can do is say "you are anti-vaccine" Get this through your head, We are NOT anti-vaccine. We are anti-letting people who on record have shot up black folk with syphilis, (Tuskegee), Brought Nazi scientists to the states to run our Medical, scientific, and space programs (operation paper clip) put garbage in vaccines and shoot our children up with it. Vaccine technology may be wonderful, and it probably is, but NOT when they put garbage in it that brain damages your child and then knowingly cover it up. You keep your head in the sand at your own risk.

If I had more popcorn available I'd be tempted to lob @Krebiozen's rock at one of the anti-vaxx hornet's nests.

And enter Jamie to give us a nice example of how antivaccine loons claim to be "not antivaccine" while spewing the nastiest antivaccine tropes out there. Well done, Jamie!

I strongly suspect that Mr. Deer has moved on from matters Wakefraud, aside from the vexatious litigation.

Quite possibly true, and fair enough. He's done fantastic work there over many years. However, he clearly retains enough interest to show up from time to time in posts about the antivaccine movement and comment, in this case poo-pooing concerns about whether these texts were faked. So I thought it also fair to ask him if he'd help resolve this question, given the unconcealed contempt he's heaped upon this discussion.

@Orac - congratulations, I think that may be anti-vax troll #99999...one more & you win a Kewpie Doll...

Mr. Deer:

I don't text. But I email. Wakefield is 58. Guessing by the date of his PhD, Thompson is 50-ish. I am, um, skeptical, that two late middle-aged men would have a texting exchange that did not have a single typo.

"I have to confess that I think this is amongst the most barking discussions I’ve seen over vaccines."

I am not talking about vaccines. I am investigating evidence in computer and photographic images, a matter in which I am well qualified. I have the benefit of knowing very little about the specifics of Andrew Wakefields modus operandi, only having the general knowledge that he is a fraud who is skilled enough to maintain a following. I look to the evidence for what it says. I know how photo and graphic material is created, and how it is prepared for presentation on the web. If you know those things, certain anomalies stick out. If you have 'just enough knowledge to be dangerous' things that ARE normal will appear to be anomalous (Kreb's screenshot; Orac's 'Back' vs 'Message', the cursor...)

There are two anomalies here:
1) The intentionally misleading way in which the screenshot is placed in an HTML table with additional text on Farber's site.
2) The fact there is no logical explanation for anyone to go through the many steps required to create the photo when they had the screenshot in hand, for the purpose of presenting the 'information' therein, .
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” I don't. It isn't.

The tech anomalies point to funny business, but don't prove the text is a fraud, nor do they trace back behind Farber to Wakefield. As others have observed, there's no smoking gun. If WT claims 'I never texted that' it's just his word versus AW, and AW can claim to have been fooled. If WT proves the texts didn't come from his phone, AW says WT used a burner, or that he was fooled.

"It would be bound to come out, and about 200 journalists would be upon it in about 25 minutes." I don't know the U.K., but I could fill a book with exceptions to 'the truth comes out. because journalism" in the US. Let me just make one specific note re: Wakefield. I've noted twice on this blog that upon analyzing the audio track of Wakefield's 'tic' video, I found highly suggestive (though not conclusive) evidence WT sound bite's had been edited deceptively. I have received zero responses or inquiries, including from you.

Let's add it up.
1) Tech anomalies
2) No typos
3) Stilted language that appears carefully composed, rather than typed extemporaneously, and the similarity of 'voice' on both 'sides' of the 'exchange'
4) Texter ID'ed only as 'William'
5) The inclusion of 'Andy' in the central AW bubble, despite the fact WT would know who he's texting to.
6) The totally over-the-top self-serving nature of the whole thing: 'the price you paid for my dishonesty' -- 'I forgive completely an w/o bitterness' (Dude, does that really pass your reporter's sniff test?)
7) Pattern of deception including the AMC videos
8) The 'verified the authenticity of this text' from AoA is carefully weasel-worded to mean nothing. Authentic as what? That WT actually sent it, or that AW actually received it? And no note on how it was verified? 'We were scammed by a Pharma Shill false-flag to discredit AW." You're a journalist, Brian. If you actually have a Thing do you phrase it like that?

Furthermore, if you actually have a Thing of that import, do you send it to Celia Farber to distribute? Can't you find someone more credible with a louder microphone for your legitimate bombshell?

If AW is half-as-smart as you think he is, and he gets that text for real, do you really think he just goes 'well, that's that' and sends a low-information screen-shot to Farber. Or do you think he immediately gets the oh-so-contrite WT to repeat the statement in some verifiable form, a cell-phone video-selfie maybe?

OK, your argument is basically 'AW's not stupid enough to risk dirtying his nose.' Well, even notwithstanding he's got plenty of excuses to keep his snot wiped, if AW faking a text is implausible, Rick Morgan letting WT go anywhere near AW is bat-shit crazy. (Not to mention requiring WT to be an imbecile, even if his goal is actually to bring down CDC and vindicate Hooker.) If there was ANYTHING to this, do you really think Morgan wouldn't be either out there spinning it, or announcing he's dropping the case?

At least ORAC is doing a little investigating. All Celia Farber did was post some suspicious text spoon fed to her by Wakefield. With skills like that, it's no wonder Farber has not had a career for two decades.

Speaking of oddities:

I apologize again for the price you paid for my dishonesty.

Forgive me if I missed some discussion, but it appears that this has been assumed to refer to Wakefield's being struck off -- as if by reporting the raw numbers, Thompson could have prevented that.

But Thompson's statement was less "I was dishonest" and more "my colleagues were dishonest". I would think, at least, that he would say "I apologize again for the price you paid for OUR dishonesty" or "my silence".

It just seems an odd thing to say. If he said it.

The third author of the study out of five comes out and says “I covered it up”

FTFY. This was before division-of-labor statements were in vogue, but c'mon. You've just conceded that you can't even understand the meaning encoded by an author list, much less the contents.

And you think, after all that, he would step into the noose by endorsing a fake text exchange on a mobile phone?

Of course.

You might as well say "Do you think Bernie Madoff would really fund an extravagant lifestyle with a Ponzi scheme? By definition, a Ponzi scheme can't go on forever, and he'd have to be caught eventually; ergo, he would never do something so foolish!"

Frankly, I think it's the suggestion that Wakefield's history shows him as not likely to fake evidence and expect not to get caught, that's "barking".

It would be bound to come out, and about 200 journalists would be upon it in about 25 minutes.

How? How would it be "bound to come out"? As has been observed, the easiest way for it to be faked is to have someone other than Thompson send the messages, and if it was faked by that means, there is no way the fraud could be definitively exposed except by either Thompson disavowing that the messages came from him, or by the phone company going into the records and saying "No, those text messages did not come from that number." The latter wouldn't happen without a court order, and the only way I see that happening is if Thompson sues over it. Either way, Thompson would have to go on the offensive against Wakefield, and I just don't see that happening in the near future.

Wait, this is Celia Farber? Ok all credibility lost on this one.

I'm not going to speculate on whether or not the texts are real or fake, though they do seem fake. Instead, I'll answer a question Brian Deer asked, namely:

And you think, after all that, he would step into the noose by endorsing a fake text exchange on a mobile phone?

We know that Wakefield has faked things before (altered data in his 1998 study). We know that he is not afraid of starting frivolous law suits (e.g., his failed libel case in the U.K. and his current case in the U.S. that appears to have no merit). We also know that he rather likes attention and that he has a "legal aid fund".

With those givens, possible explanations for why he might fake or endorse someone else's fake texts should become apparent. One such possibility is to whip his followers up into a frenzy in which they will be more likely to support and fight for him, perhaps even contributing to his "legal" expenses. He may feel that the short-term effects outweigh any possible long-term consequences, which are not necessarily guaranteed to even come to pass. There are ample reasons why he might "put his neck in the noose".

Meanwhile, back at HG:

(a.) estrogen kicks a drunken tosser of ethyl mercury out the door.
(b.) testosterone invites it to sleep on the couch.

(c.) 5x more prevelance of autism in boys than girls
(d.) the girls that have *autism* had higher levels of testosterone in the amniocentesis fluid

Boyd Haley, retired chemist University of Kentucky, Lexinton
https://youtube.com/watch?v=oMXZEFX7jUM&feature=youtu.be
-------------------------------------------

Throughout history, when the slaves get uppity then an edict goes out to destroy all the first-born males —

Think Exodus/Moses.

"Boyd Haley, retired chemist" OK Tim, tell us why we should take any notice of a youtube video by someone who knows nothing about the topic?

Well, in my version of the Bible, The Lord killed the first born males on behalf of the slaves, to help force their freedom. What cult do you belong to that tells the story the other way around? Or are you drinking the bong water again?

Umm, Johnny? It's why the little tike was stuck in a reed basket to float away and get picked up by Egyptian royalty in the first place.

-- just call the rest payback.

next??

as for humourous v. humorous

Autocorrect much??

No. When Moses was born, and the prophecy that there was a Hebrew leader born, Pharaoh ordered all newborn males to be killed, no matter where they were in birth order.

What else would you like to be wrong about?

Dammit. Johnny beat me to it. Yeah, the slaves were the Israelites. They were slaves to the Egyptians. When Moses came back and said, "Let my people go (you damn, dirty apes [apocryphal])!", Pharaoh said, "Nyet!"

So God sent ten plagues, the last being the death of the first born of every house. Because the Israelites did the whole "blood-on-the-door" thing, God spared their firstborns. Ah, but not Pharaoh. Even after seeing nine plagues come and go, he thought Moses was bluffing.

Tim might be thinking of a later book in the Bible, the Gospel according to Matthew. In it, the author describes how Herod ordered the execution of young Jewish males near Bethlehem because he was told by the Magi that the new King o' The Jews had been born there... Hardly because the slaves got all "uppity."

But we can't blame Tim, really. The AoA crowd, especially Kent Heckenlively is all about violent religious imagery when it comes to vaccines, because THAT will help autistic children:

"What I can say is that on some level, my prayers to God for an understanding of the autism epidemic have been answered. I now know why they fear us so much. I can’t prove it, and as a lawyer I understand that’s the real show. But I know.

And yet, as thankful as I am for an understanding of what has happened to my child and so many others, my heart is heavy. The Dark Forces which in the past have destroyed the careers of those who have found clues to the afflictions of our children and other disease communities are once again on the move. You may very well read about their actions this week. And I can’t do anything to stop them...

But if you’re in good with the Lord, bitching with Him, or haven’t put in a call lately I think this might be the perfect time to send up a flare. You might even think about reciting psalm 94.

God knows there are some wicked people out there trying to keep our children from getting better. If you’re listening God, and it meets with Your approval, this week would be an excellent time to deal with them."

And who can forget the re-creation of the Blood Libel dinner on a Thanksgiving a few years back?

Re: autocorrecting {yes, i've seen it being done on the new speech to text autocorrects... just not with the volcano}

How Siri might interpret Eyjafjallajokull (icelandic volcano)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BRnnJ45sCIw

The proper way
https://youtube.com/watch?v=M00rXsOBGWM

Brian Deer,

Having no dog in the causality race, I think betting is still open on the Brian Hooker story. Just because he’s an obsessive and makes mistakes, it doesn’t mean that in ten years harassing CDC he hasn’t turned something up, even if it’s not quite all he thinks.
In fact, given the scale of a government bureacracy like that, it would be more surprising if he didn’t.

If he has turned something up he is keeping it to himself. I'm pretty sure* there is nothing to the either the black kids getting MMR story or the thimerosal tics association.

If he had something of substance why would he publish a lousy study and collude in that awful video, instead of playing his card(s) straight away, or at least alluding to further dreadful revelations to come? Have there been hints of more to come that I have missed?

It's a curious business; the taped phone calls, emails and now these text messages. It feels a bit as if someone is rather ineptly beta testing some sort of media manipulation program. The text messages are just one more (purulent) drip in a pre-planned campaign, perhaps.

* 90% plus, I would say, if I were being nuanced.

Because I sometimes am too curious for my own good, I decided to take a peek at Farber's website-

first of all it's called 'truth barrier'- which may inadvertently be an appropriate name as most of her pet topics incorporate an intrinsic barrier to truth-
hiv/ aids denialism, Clark Baker's group, Andy's private phone messages et al.
An interesting crop of visitors show up there for that last post: Miller, Scudamore, a TM, a TM's daughter, anti-vaxxers, hiv/aids denialists like Crowe and a lone but stalwart RI minion: he wot has braved Jake's cesspit and asked the right questions. Heh.

I notice that her next post implores visitors for cash so she pay her utility bills. As I understand it, she is the child of a wealthy NY radio host: isn't it easier to beg relatives for living expenses? Although I certainly can sympathise with the high cost of living in international centres of finance and fashion, the fact that she needs to solicit funds should inform her that she perhaps is in the wrong line of work.

Actually, I frequently counsel women who are attempting to change their careers, return to school or begin a new life- if I were a nice person I might offer her free advice. But I'm not a nice person, especially to disease promoters and woo enablers who masquerade as journalists.

-btw- the fact that the media hasn't covered the CDC whistleblower story encourages advocates of alt media which DARES to cover the truth or so they tell us-
I've heard this all over the swampy, infectious sinkholes which I survey.

I keep my finger on the pulse of woo (tm) and am careful to thoroughly wash my hands afterwards.

ordered all newborn males to be killed

Ok, Johnny. You caught me with a 'nit'. I'll not pick at it any farther.

@Denice Walter

I just had someone tonight on Twitter saying that NBC, CNN, CBS, and ABC not covering this dud of a story is censorship.

And another person saying CDC was no better than Hitler.

Ah, hyperbole.

@ Krebiozen:

Orac is correct: you are very bad.
But your 'texts' may excellent uses if your friends can take a joke.

may HAVE excellent

I'm not in the medical field, but have enjoyed following this story for the absurdities many of you have pointed out. I found the site by accident when researching one of the early posts about the "Bombshell" revelation. I searched for hours that first weekend looking for something to either validate or discredit the story. I was astounded at the sheer number of conspiracy sites who were shouting that this was the biggest revelation ever...that the CDC had been doing fraudulent studies, and on an on. On Sunday of that weekend, I contacted a friend who teaches epidemiology an asked him what he knew about the claims. He did some searching and he, too was astounded by all the conspiracy sites. At that time the CDC had made no statement, the "whistleblower" was supposedly in hiding in fear for his life and the lives of his family. There was nothing in pub.med at the time.

I'm wondering now when all these sites are going to turn on their "whistleblower." If it really was the bombshell they all claimed, one would think they would have reacted much differently to a man who concealed information for 10 years or so that if revealed would have reduced the number of Autism cases in that time period. And, yet they're all calling the whistleblower a hero. That seems illogical to me. If I were a parent of a child who got the vaccine in question, and then developed Autism, I would not be calling him a hero for providing info after my child was affected. That they haven't yet turned on Thompson seems indicative of just how irrational these people may be.

Yesterday, I saw a post about the HPV vaccine killing young women. Shades of Michelle Bachman!! And, today these same sites are posting another "bombshell" about Thompson admitting that Mercury causes Autism.

Sciencerules, you are just starting to work out how these conspiracy-laden sites work. It doesn't matter if the various stories contradict each other, because: It is always about the vaccines. That is all that matters.

One of the best examples is the continuing meme that Walker-Smith's court case proved that Wakefield's paper was correct. A look at the court transcript shows that Walker-Smith in fact pushed Wakefield under a bus, but he remains a bit-part hero in the minds of Wakefield's supporters.

@Johnny Re: first born v newborn

Yes. The newborns that hadn't yet gone to slavitude class.

{Damn nits -- perhaps if there were some prescribed medication for puritis available??, no, wait....}

Krebiozen,
Yes, it's by no means inexplicable, or proof of anything. I just consider it is probably a detail that an American (creating a fake image) might not even consider.

Personally i live in Hong Kong, I consider my archaic, and possibly irrelevant, "u"s and the use of "s" over "z" to be one of the last bastions of my Britishnessship (when I'm not shouting "God Save the Queen" at people in my bowler hat that is).

joseph

when I’m not shouting “God Save the Queen” at people in my bowler hat

If you are shouting at the people living in your bowler hat, you may want to do something about that, or you end up like Tim @162.

@Narad

RE: Tech anomalies

Yes. The geometry of that CRT seemed abit wretched. Bad S-curve, ..., trapezoidal. Perhaps it's not done 'warming up'? My guess -- 21SD95 {Integraph}

opps, sorry Narad ^^ that one's for Sadmar

If this was fake and I was William Thompson, I would have my lawyer take care of it...he hasn't.

You know, these comments read like a bunch of people desperately hoping that the text messages are fake. It's now been three days since this story was first published. Surely, if the texts were fake, Thompson's lawyers would have fallen over themselves to publish a further statement dancing their client's involvement. The author of this thread directly contacted the lawyer regarding these text messages and hasn't had a response.

Do Thompson and Wakefield both speak (and text) like villains in a third-rate Victorian melodrama performed by fourteen year old school children? Really??

And why send a screenshot of your text messages to an AIDS denying blog?

No - this is all cock - and to cap it all, I believe I've tracked down a screenshot of the actual conversation between the two...

pic.twitter.com/g8HktaPC3E

Becky, I don't know about speak, but they certainly don't text like teenagers. There are too many vowels for a start.

To me their text efforts are more like the dialogue in The Beverly Hillbillies.

Militant Agnostic- It's how they get in there that confuses me.

To me their text efforts are more like the dialogue in The Beverly Hillbillies.

Speaking as someone who watched the whole thing through in half-hour segments when it aired locally at 4 a.m. and considers it to be a quintessential utopian play, I feel obliged to demand justification for this likening.

^ Beats me. I didn't even say anything about Cloris Leachman.

joseph,

Personally i live in Hong Kong, I consider my archaic, and possibly irrelevant, “u”s and the use of “s” over “z” to be one of the last bastions of my Britishnessship (when I’m not shouting “God Save the Queen” at people in my bowler hat that is).

Heh, PGP will probably think you're serious. I actually own a bowler hat, an old theatre prop that a friend gave me, but I have never worn it in public; I think my (American) wife would probably disown me if I did.

I read a paper years ago about Greek-Cypriots living in the UK being more Cypriot in their behavior than those living in Cyrpus. The idea is that people hold onto their cultural values more strongly when surrounded by people with different ones. I suspect Wakefield plays on his posh Englishness as part of his appeal - I have been surprised by how some people in the US (mostly ladies of a certain age) react to my English accent (less posh than Andy and I've picked up a bit of estuary along the way) - so it wouldn't surprise me if he had turned off autocorrect on his phone to maintain his image when texting.

Rebecca Fisher - that's a broken link and I can't figure out how to fix it - I'm hoping for humor, Or do I mean humour?

Well fun as it is I do think some of the logic being used here is a bit dodgy. For instance, some people seem to be taking some suspicious things about this (purported) text exchange as evidence of one kind of fake - then other 'evidence' for another kind then adding them up - even if they are mutually contradictory. Some of the things about the construction of the image (mouse cursors etc) seem to play both ways - if its genuine why would someone make such a questionable image as 'proof', if its fake why produce such a questionable image and expect it to be accepted. Maybe some of this is simply evidence that whatever is going on someone made a bad job of it. Trying to analyse the spelling is even more of a dead end. I'm British and I always use american 'z' spelings and I know a lot of people who do. In fact I worked for a company for a long time where all documentation for external purposes was done in a american spellings. Also my father in law always texts in immaculately spelled english. (Signing a message in the middle of a conversation, which also happens to be in the middle of the screen seems like the most strange thing to me - speaks of premeditated orchestration not fakery though)

What we are saying here is this is just an image. Its of no value as evidence of anything and there are some reasonable questions on its provenance. Given the priors for Wakefield I think it is more than reasonable to suggest orchestration and presentation (his actual MO more than outright fakery) but some of the 'analysis' is starting to stretch proper use of logic (imho).
It's enough to say the prior for anything from or connected to Wakefield is a position of distrust and so we simply disregard this distraction as being anymore than that. Trying to take it beyond that is pushing credibility -doesn't mean its not true though!

Good morning, long time reader here finally commenting!

Re: Messages/Back topic. This looks like it could be a screen shot of an iPhone email which features in it's body a screen shot taken of an iPhone text message exchange.

Bad man or nor, I can't resist....
http://twitpic.com/ebavbj

Sorry, try this instead: http://twitpic.com/ebavs8

I think my (American) wife would probably disown me if I did.

How about a tall derby?

Bad man or nor, I can’t resist….

Kreb, you are not quite as bad as Becky.

@Krebiozen - hmm - it's OK for me is I cut and paste it. Sorry if it's not working. :-(

Anyway, ChrisP has kindly relinked it up there ^^^ (Thanks Mr P!)

@Kreb - Just realised you're not too far away from me. I've probably walked past you in the Eddie!

How about a tall derby?

Now I would wear that, but the wife doesn't like any of my hats - I have a top hat, a brown trilby, a black trilby and a straw hat that has seen better days. Sadly my head seems to have grown over the years and none of them really fit any more. She did buy me a baseball cap, but I can't bring myself to wear it in public. So much for acculturation.

I’ve probably walked past you in the Eddie!

Quite possibly, though I rarely frequent pubs these days. I just realized I had my first pint in the Eddie almost 30 years ago (yike!), though I didn't move here until more recently.

That link isn't a link in my Firefox. Odd. I admire you, er, robust language, by the way.

Something else quite telling about the thread at Farber's site is the small number of comments. There are none of ORAC's readers taking her to task. Could Farber be censoring the comments the way she censors the truth?

It should be noted:
- one of Orac's minions, Larry/ Lawrence, did get through Celia's reality barricade. He manages to defy the censors @ AoA, TMR and Autism Investigated regularly as do several others present here ( Narad, Becky, PGP, Alain etc). Lawrence and Becky probably are allowed because anti-vaxxers think that they are each individually Brian Deer.
- J Todd is the original, one and only Pharma Slut (tm)- he even has a costume.

@ Krebiozen:

On hats:
my late mother worked in the fashion trade and once gave me sound advice that people who have oval-shaped faces can wear any type of hat and not look ridiculous.Thus I have worn all sorts of hats over the years altho' I have recently settled upon a tweed cloche when it's cold and a beige cotton bucket-ish thing ( that I can shape to resemble Bergman's hat in Casablanca) when it's rainy or sunny.

Hat choice revolves on the width of your jaw in proportion to the width of your face near your eyes. You have to try them on. Witness Jude Law in a Bowler. Pretty good. Fedoras work on a more diverse set of men but Australian hats are difficult to wear well ( unless if you are living there then It's alright I suppose - function over form).Taxi driver caps are not easy to style and Baseball caps are impossible ( except if you're a female model with long hair preferably black). .

Here's the most hilarious thing I've read in a very, very long time:

The Insanely Good Soul of Dr. Andrew Wakefield

Oh. My. God.

Seriously?

Kent Heckenlively is truly deluded.

The first picture was of a picture taken at
latitude 40; 47; 53.02 longitude 73; 58; 6.65
Weston Observatory
381 Concord Rd
Weston, MA 02493 with an iphone 4s and the second picture is a screen shot of an iphone 5
The meta data are in the original files.

@Orac
Well KH did use a form of 'insane.' (Freudian slip there?)

@Kreb
The change in carrier name is a good one, but I just love the gag with the battery indicator. Well done, sir!

@karen
Luckily for William Thompson, you are not his attorney.

@JCL
As I'm the only one who's done any "adding up" AFAICT, would you care to unpack your sweeping assertion and explain how any of the things I noted are 'mutually contradictory' or 'dodgy'? Or perhaps offer some clue as to your credentials for analyzing any of this material? (And BTW, 'mutually contradictory' is a usage error. Things may be 'mutually exclusive' or 'contradictory', but the latter term already implies comparison within a set, so adding 'mutually' creates a recursive non sequitur.)

Kent Heckenlively is truly deluded.

Heckenlively has always been deluded. Why else would he think writing a book with Mikovits was a good idea?

But for all time conspiracy theory nutbaggery I give you John D Stone.

Sadmar, i am an attorney. And if I was acting for him, the only reason I would not have released a further statement denying involvement in these text messages, is because he was the author.

sadmar,

The change in carrier name is a good one, but I just love the gag with the battery indicator. Well done, sir!

I'm glad someone noticed! There's a slightly more obscure gag with the time (4:20 is code for smoking marijuana), mainly because I have wondered at times just what some of the players in this melodrama have been smoking.

Sadmar, i am an attorney. And if I was acting for him, the only reason I would not have released a further statement denying involvement in these text messages, is because he was the author.

It wouldn't surprise me if that were true. However, if that ultimately turns out to be the case (assuming that Thompson ever 'fesses up, given that no one other than antivaccine loons trusts Wakefield, and even then not all of them), we can then marvel at how Farber and Wakefield screwed it up so bad that no one believed them. :-)

Oh, and then write off Thompson as having drunk deeply of antivax Kool Aid.

It wouldn’t surprise me if that were true. However, if that ultimately turns out to be the case (assuming that Thompson ever ‘fesses up, given that no one other than antivaccine loons trusts Wakefield, and even then not all of them), we can then marvel at how Farber and Wakefield screwed it up so bad that no one believed them.

Oh, and then write off Thompson as having drunk deeply of antivax Kool Aid.

And there we go. Hours and hours of overanalysis in an attempt to prove that the texts were fake (because Thompson couldn't possibly be responsible because in his press release he was firmly on the side of the CDC) and when it seems clear that the texts were not fake, an immediate attack of "oh well, that's because he's a loony" . Imagine, just imagine for a second, , what if Thompson is not a loony and the CDC has been altering study outcomes to fit its "vaccines ar safe" stance? Why is that not a possibility that is even being contemplated?

Because there's no evidence and even William Thompson doesn't claim that the CDC has been "altering" study outcomes, that's why.

Oh sorry, I was labouring under the misapprehension that an admission IS evidence. But that's only in every court in every democracy in the world. My mistake.

We're talking science, here, not a court of law. That's what matters.

Riigghhtt. Science. Fact. Black and white. Not open to interpretation. Not at all dependant on the subjectivity of the reporters or what they think is relevant, or the changes in knowledge or understanding over time.

Clearly all those scientists who for 75 years classified Pluto as a planet were drinking from the crazy conspiracy Kool Aid too.

"Science. Fact. Black and white. Not open to interpretation."

Bhah, ha, ha, ha. That is hilarious.

Where did you get your science knowledge? Saturday morning cartoon shows?

if you're a lawyer, Ms. Karen, you're the kind that give the profession their bad reputation.

Thompson CANNOT make an "admission" that clinically significant findings were covered up. Why? Because he is not the arbiter of what is clinically significant and what is not.

The most he can do is ALLEGE that the findings which could have been presented AS IF they were meaningful were, in his eyes, meaningful - and in fact, he HAS made exactly that allegation (which means that treating the supposed text messages from him as an "admission" to anything is a laughable blunder on your part - I'd say it makes me doubt your claim to be a lawyer, but since the antivax movement has plenty of incompetent lawyers, that doesn't prove much.)

Follow me for a little thought experiment, here. Let us suppose that Thompson was NOT part of the group that conducted the study in question - suppose it was another person entirely (let's call him John Jones.) And let's suppose that John Jones makes allegations similar to the allegations made by Thompson - that the finding of ONE statistically significant results in ONE very thinly sliced subgroup is NOT the sort of spurious looks-like-a-result-but-isn't that you get very easily by slicing your data up too much, but instead a clinically significant finding.

Do you think the judge would accept William Thompson as an expert witness to testify on that issue? Remember, in this gedanken he's not part of the original group, so he cannot be called as a witness of fact. Would the judge really say "Oh, well, he's a psychologist, so he must be an expert in interpreting epidemiological findings"? "He's a psychologist, so he must understand all the difficult statistical issues involved"?

I think the answer is a clear "no". Thompson may sincerely believe that the anomalous finding which showed up ONLY in boys, and ONLY in African-American boys, and ONLY in boys in one very narrow age bracket, was signal and not statistical noise. But just because someone believes something doesn't mean they're right. I'd be surprised if you got all the way through law school without learning that.

Ah, but what is "right" is nothing more than collective subjectivity. I did not say that Thompson's admission, on its own, was conclusive evidence of a coverup, or falsified data, or anything in face. But his evidence IS evidence.

But I see what you are doing.
Step 1. The text messages are fake.
Step 2. If they are not fake, Thompson is either mad or corrupted (either way he cannot be telling the truth)
Step 3. Make a personal attack on anyone who does not conform to the common thought process in the blog.

I think it is fairly obvious that Karen has not been following the science bloggers and and the posters, who were able to review the original DeStefano, et al study (which is a case-control study) and Hooker's "analysis" of the DeStefano et al study which is a cohort study.

Mr. Hooker is not a medical researcher and he does not have a graduate degree in epidemiology...and he most definitely is not a medical statistician. He sliced, diced and minced the data from the DeStefano et al study and came up with a statistically insignificant number of black males who supposedly had a reaction to the MMR vaccine...which, according to Mr Hooker might have caused their ASD diagnoses.

What a silly comparison you made about Pluto, to justify your allegations that something is amiss with the authors of the DeStefano, et al study.

Karen...need I remind you that the design and implementation of various types of studies are universal and that the mathematics/statistics are universal throughout the sciences...even if you live in Australia?

https://onlinecourses.science.psu.edu/stat507/book/export/html/2

The first picture was of a picture taken at
latitude 40; 47; 53.02 longitude 73; 58; 6.65
Weston Observatory

I have 40.°798064, −73.°968514,* 67 m ASL, which is roughly the 10th floor of someplace in Manhattan.

BTW, Farber failed to survive summary judgment in her defamation suit against Richard Jefferys and ain't going nowhere with the other two. Perhaps it's part of the affinity.

* Yes, the Unicode geniuses forgot \fdg, \farcm, and \farcs.

Ah, but what is “right” is nothing more than collective subjectivity.

I was just thinking that what was needed here was some Postmodernism. Oh, wait, no, I wasn't.

Karen

But his [Thompon’s] evidence IS evidence.

Sure, but where is it? All we’ve got coming from Thompson is the press release issued by Morgan Verkamp on August 27th. And that’s not much in the way of evidence.

Most of the claims are coming from Hooker and – including the texts which are the topic of this blogpost – Wakefield.

Do you consider Andrew J. Wakefield a credible source? If so, why?

Karen, perhaps it would help if you used a bit of logic in your argument.

1. William Thompson made an allegation in his letter (it is just an allegation as he provided no evidence) that an analysis was left out of the paper.

2. The allegation was quite specific: viz. data pertaining to a sub-group of African-American boys receiving their first MMR vaccination between 24 and 36 months of age.

3. It is possible to go back to the original paper and determine this sub-group comprised a relatively small number of cases (somewhere around 14).

4. The small numbers would be a clear reason for not including the analysis in the paper, because the probability of a Type I or Type II error would be large.

5. The most likely explanation for what we are seeing is that Thompson has misunderstood how statistics works.

3. It is possible to go back to the original paper and determine this sub-group comprised a relatively small number of cases (somewhere around 14).

How are you calculating this? I've got 45 cases and 124 controls in the signal bins for the total sample. Applying the blanket pigmentation modifier of 36%, that's ~16 cases and ~45 controls.

^ Which of course doesn't even connect to the purportedly "covered up" signal, which was in 30% of the 3–10 age spread.

Applying the blanket pigmentation modifier of 36%, that’s ~16 cases and ~45 controls.

Of which 79% were boys.

But his evidence IS evidence.

Is hearsay admissible in this imaginary court?

Of which 79% were boys.

Gotcha. Thanks.

I was going to bow out after the personal attacks began, but a few interesting questions have been raised, so I'm happy to continue on.

I have no opinion about Wakefield. I know he has been almost universally discredited, but I have no personal opinion on his credibility. I have not red the Lancet journal, nor anything about him on the Internet. I am interested in the vaccination debate, but Wakefield has not been a factor. I have no opinion on whether MMR causes autism. I KNOW that the empirical evidence is that there is no link, but I am also aware that there are a lot of differing agendas out there. I have no opinion on any link.

What I have found interesting about Thompson is that, if what he said in the secret recordings is true, then that calls into question the independence of the CDC. I have no opinion on whether what he said is true or correct or not. I thought his press release was the best that could have been made of a bad situation. He had been caught out in secretly recorded conversations saying some things that the CDC would not have been happy with, so he could not deny that, and yet in that statement he clearly aligned himself with the CDC and also promoted vaccines. (As an aside, he is not a whistleblower, he was "outed" which means he had no option but to make a statement, almost certainly at the direction of the CDC).

Yet it only became really interesting when the text messages came out. Those texts are clearly inconsistent with the press release. His statement did not mention anything about falsifying information nor did he draw a link between vaccines and autism. And yet in the texts he says "the price you paid for my dishonesty" , suggesting that he believes his actions covered up a link between MMR and autism.

I initially thought the texts were fake because they just don't make any sense. Why would you be communicating something so damning to a man who has just shafted you by making public, private conversations. And why would you accept responsibility for your "disloyalty" being responsible for ruining the credibility of an internationally discredited man? Especially when your employers have extricated you from a professionally embarrassing situation by funding a press release that saves your face??

But now, 4 days after the press release, there has been no further statement. Orac says he called the lawyer to specifically verify the texts, without response. As I have previously said, this can only be because Thompson can't deny the texts (that is, that e sent them, not the truthfulness of the texts).

I can guarantee that this is what is going on at Morgan Verkamp. They are screaming at Thompson for not following their advice. The texts are irreconcilable with the press release, which means that either his press release was manufactured. There has been no denying of the texts, which would have been done immediately had they been faked. I'm betting that Morgan Verkamp have terminated acting for him due to a conflict.

My point on this blog is that it did not start off with "Thompson is a crackpot". It started off with "the texts must be fake because Thompson is a good guy and works for the CDC" and only when it became obvious that the texts were not faked (although almost certainly edited), that the argument has now become one of Thompson being crazy.

I was just asking, what if he isn't? What if the CDC is manipulating data? So far on this blog there are two theories, that Thompson has been set up and that he is crazy. There is a third option, that he is telling the truth. And when I asked the question, what if, there was a barrage of childish insults thrown my way.

Just to clarify, I don't believe that accuses cause autism, I don't believe there is a big government conspiracy to poison our children and I don't believe that what Thompson did, if it is true, suppressed evidence of a link between MMR and autism. I just don't know. But I find it fascinating that the messenger is always shot down, rather than stopping to consider whether they could possibly be telling the truth.

I know he has been almost universally discredited, but I have no personal opinion on his credibility. I have not red the Lancet journal, nor anything about him on the Internet.

One doesn't see that sort of carefully crafted invitation to cross-examination every day.

What I have found interesting about Thompson is that, if what he said in the secret recordings is true, then that calls into question the independence of the CDC.

How? Independence from what?

(As an aside, he is not a whistleblower, he was “outed” which means he had no option but to make a statement, almost certainly at the direction of the CDC).

"Whistleblower" is an operationally, statutorily defined term of art here.

I’m betting that Morgan Verkamp have terminated acting for him due to a conflict.

What would you like to make the stakes?

Karen, I suggest you reread your own prior comments, to find why other posters here jumped on those comments. Your comments were quite provocative and indicated to us that you have not, read Orac's multiple posts and the links he provided to other science bloggers.

You have to remember that Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield have, from the onset, been controlling the flow of information about Mr. Thompson's personal involvement with Mr. Hooker (and possible personal involvement with Andrew Wakefield).

The first videotape released by Wakefield's media company, had Thompson's voice disguised; Hooker and Wakefield hung that "whistleblowe" label on Thompson.

The next move was orchestrated by Wakefield and Hooker where they named the "whistleblower".

Within a short period of time, Mr. Thompson's statement came from his attorney which stated that:

- He did not know, nor did he give consent, for Hooker to record the telephone conversations.

- He did not give consent for Hooker and Wakefield to identify him; they "outed" their informant.

Within a few days, a new character, Celia Farber provides screen shots of what are purported to be text messages between Wakefield and Thompson, where Thompson apologizes to Wakefield for lying about his being recorded by Hooker and being "outed" by Hooker and Wakefield.

- Who provided (Thompson, Wakefield, Hooker or someone else) those screen shots to Celia Farber?

- Are those screen shots real...or were they in some way doctored and calculated to deceive?

Just before Farber publishes those text screenshots, Hooker states publicly (admits) that he recorded private telephone conversations without Mr. Thompson's consent.

You claim to know nothing about Wakefield's history, Hooker's history and the DeStefano et al study and Hooker's study...yet there you go running off at the mouth with your opinion that there is a distinct possibility that DeStefano and the other researchers at the CDC, deliberately skewing the results. I hope you realize how ridiculous your prior posts are.

Hooker states publicly (admits) that he recorded private telephone conversations without Mr. Thompson’s consent.

I seem to have missed out on this one.

Karen, I do agree with some of your points (particularly about what might be going on with Thompson and his lawyers). However, in light of your concluding statement:

But I find it fascinating that the messenger is always shot down, rather than stopping to consider whether they could possibly be telling the truth.

I have to ask you a question: whom do you think is the messenger?

I’m guessing from all of your posts, you think the messenger is William Thompson. Yet, all the public information (with the exception of the Aug 27 press release) on this issue has come from persons other than William Thompson.

I see the messenger as Andrew J. Wakefield.

You claim

I have no opinion about Wakefield. . . I have not red the Lancet journal, nor anything about him on the Internet.

Perhaps you should. You continue:

I am interested in the vaccination debate, but Wakefield has not been a factor.

Really? Not a factor? Try starting your reading here: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/jan/28/mmr-doctor-timeline
Pay extra attention to the vaccine uptake numbers reported, and when measles returned to the UK. Now in 2014 the US may be following suit.
For further reading, full transcripts of Wakefield’s GMC hearings can be found here:
http://sheldon101blog.blogspot.com/
Maybe you’ll see why what you seem to be considering “evidence” some of the rest of us are taking with more than one grain of salt.

Nice bit of tone trolling, Karen.

I don't have a specific position over the reality or unreality of the texts, and I certainly won't base that on whether there has been a response to them or not.

However, if they are real then both Wakefield and Thompson are living in fantasy land. Wakefield's paper was withdrawn, not because it could not be verified with other research, but because he had an undeclared conflict of interest and he faked the data.

Even if the Georgia study had a sub-group with a significant correlation, that would not mean that MMR caused autism. There is a huge amount of other data out there showing MMR doesn't cause autism.

Pay extra attention to the vaccine uptake numbers reported, and when measles returned to the UK.

In handy graphical format, compare this with the notifications by age here.

I was just asking, what if he isn’t? What if the CDC is manipulating data? So far on this blog there are two theories, that Thompson has been set up and that he is crazy. There is a third option, that he is telling the truth.

No, you just didn't bother to read the other entries.

I see Dan Olmsted has picked up on this (Here: http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/09/age-of-autism-twilight-of-the-apolog…) and has posted a screenshot of his own text conversation with Wakefield.

It struck me that the language used by Wakefield in this exchange is completely different to the tone used in the supposed Thompson exchange - far more "texty". Which makes me think that the Olmsted conversation is real, the Thompson one has been faked (not necessarily by Wakefield), but Wakefield is stringing everyone (including Olmsted) along claiming it's real, knowing that Thompson's legal advisers will be telling him to keep quiet and wait for the whole thing to blow over.

Now, where's my tinfoil hat? ;-)

"Different from", obviously. Not "to".

Lawrence,

"CDC whistleblower" aside, here's an example of a disconnect (i.e., misguided independence) when it comes to vaccine safety:

The CDC (NIOSH) website "How to Prevent Latex Allergies" states - If you are diagnosed with latex allergy, before receiving any shots (such as a flu shot), be sure the person giving it uses a latex-free vial stopper.

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2012-119/pdfs/2012-119.pdf

In an FDA website "There's No Guarantee of Latex Free" it states - To avoid giving a false sense of security to people who are allergic to natural rubber latex, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is recommending that manufacturers of FDA-regulated medical products stop using statements on labels such as 'Latex-free' or 'does not contain latex'.

http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm342641.htm

So, the CDC says use a vaccine if it says "latex free" and the FDA recommends not labeling vaccines "Latex free".

In my opinion, in a world of information overload and government disconnect, with respect to vaccines, we need medical science to step it up .

Go home Mr. Dochinak - you're old news & an old troll, we were done with you a year ago (or more).

@Michael J. Dochniak

I'm allergic to latex. My earliest memories of balloons at parties was that I did not like them because my mouth and face would burn for hours. *latex allergy* was not asked about in hospitals until the late ~90's early 2000's or so, If I remember correctly, so that I and my mother would always have to inform them before hand. They would hang a big white caution sign on the door -- But the room would still be full of latex.

I'm *assuming* the latex is somewhat in solution in the vile and not just the top?

Would that not be expected to increase inflammation beyond that expected?

What would be the percentage of boys(and their testosterone tendency to invite ethylmercury to sleep on the couch) with latex allergies?

And to think; I'd not have made that possible connection if Lawrence hadn't pointed out you're a troll. Good Lawrence! *grins*

@Orac

I was recently in the emergency trauma-room after a friend fell off his scooter. The two Dr.s were wearing latex gloves while stitching him up even though the signage at the hospital clearly states "Latex-Free Zone".

Unfortunately, the medical community still can't grasp the natural-latex glove problem (i.e., Iatrogenic allergies)

Oh by-the-way Orac, natural latex is still a component in some vaccine packaging and delivery systems triggering allergy induced regressive-autism. We don't need a whistleblower to substantiate the harm done from natural latex.

Jeez, we went through this before....your evidence amounts to absolutely zero....please, just go away!

Lawrence,

Here's a refresher course on vaccines and natural latex. I won't quiz you about it and there are nice pictures to keep you interested.

https://www.facebook.com/autismfile/posts/10152370346072769

Dochniak's evidence-free posts are annoying, sure, but I'll be happy as long as he doesn't post his Vogon-like poetry.

For the newbies, see
http://youtu.be/H2WPJQPo0kI
Skip to about 2:15

They are - the man has serious mental issues, as evidenced by his completely one-track mind & ascribing all the ills of the world to the use of latex.....

Perhaps Tim and Mr. Dochniak would like to argue over whether autism is due to ethylmercury or to latex allergy on Mr Dochniak's Facebook page.

The last lab I worked in didn't have any latex gloves, just those purple nitrile ones.

Tim might also be interested to see the paper that apparently convinced the Geiers that mercury binds testosterone here. If humans had benzene instead of blood and a normal temperature of 50C (122F), the Geiers might have been onto something regarding testosterone and mercury chloride (not ethylmercury). But they don't and they weren't.

@Krebiozen

I can't recall the last time I saw latex gloves in a medical setting. It's always nitrile. I wonder how Dochniak knew the gloves were latex and not nitrile.

Lordy, no Krebiozen! I don't really 'do' papers...I'm a pothead.

However, I'd like to point out that many reactions which are not expected to occure do, in fact, occure in the presence of some catalyst (whether it modifies expected temp, pressure, concentrations,..., time) or other and that living systems are very very good at contributing to the total entropy of the universe by maintaining against certain otherwise thermodynamically unfavorable situations.

I'd certainly agree that the testosterone claim would need to be verified in vivo.

As for benzene?? I've got too much blood in my benzene-stream, at the moment to even know what that is. But I *thought* it was used in organic chemistry to simplify modeling certain criteria inside cytoplasm.

We don’t need a whistleblower to substantiate the harm done from natural latex

Certainly not. And, I *think* what finally brought it to light were hospital workers suddenly dropping dead from it which they had never noticed before due to asymptomatic sensitization. I *seem* to remember they first blamed it on the 'donning agent'...

Respectful Insolence banter:

...evidence-free posts are annoying... (#232);
...completely one track mind...(#233);
...didn't have any...(#234);
...it's always...(#235); and
...I'm a pothead (#236).

If this is the typical respectful insolence on this Scienceblog it's clear Prometheus is dearly missed.

Michael,

I hope you are not somehow insinuating that I'm not a pothead just because if someone were to look right now there seems to be a lack of it just laying around or otherwise being employed in a manner consistent with its' labeling.

But now, 4 days after the press release, there has been no further statement. Orac says he called the lawyer to specifically verify the texts, without response. As I have previously said, this can only be because Thompson can’t deny the texts (that is, that e sent them, not the truthfulness of the texts).
(emphasis added)

Except you can't say that. You can tell us and all the world "Well, this is what I would do if I was in that situation, and every way I look at it, I think it's the only smart thing to do" but frankly, that doesn't even prove that it is a smart thing to do, let alone the only smart thing to do, let alone a thing to do so smart that anyone who doesn't do it doesn't have the option available to them.

You claim that we must be blinded because we're not weighing the evidence correctly. I say that's a beam that needs to come out of your own eye first. You say that you have not read "anything about [Wakefield] on the Internet" and therefore that prevents you from having any personal opinion about his credibility. Are you ignorant of one of the longest and most expensive proceedings in the history of the General Medical Council, which found Wakefield guilty of irresponsible and dishonest conduct and struck him off the medical register? Or do you have some private rationale why only opinions on the Internet are worthy of consideration - and then, only so marginal that if you don't look at them then they aren't relevant? (I can't help noting that Wakefield called no witnesses in his defense during the GMC proceedings. By your own logic, that must prove that he was entirely dishonest and knew that no witness could possibly refute that, right?)

I don't vaccinate. I'm against them...and even I can admit this txt is fake!
I really don't know why people think it's real.

@Johnny,

That poem was pretty, um, ... it's just in the presentation, I'm sure it's quite good, really. Besides, she's probably somebody's mother -- Throw her into the vacuume of space, anyways.

It reminds me of the old Puff 'n' Stuff I'd watch at the doctor's office while waiting for the brainswelling to go down every time I got an 'allergy shot'.

And it's weird he ends one of his txts with "Andy". Wouldn't Thompson know it's Andy? Who ends txts with their name?

And lastly. Who in their right mind apologizes in a txt?

“Different from“, obviously. Not “to”.

Fowler goes so far as to call this not just a superstition, but also "mere pedantr[y]" based on the rationale advanced.

If this is the typical respectful insolence on this Scienceblog it’s clear Prometheus is dearly missed.

Too true.

Again, for the newbies, Dochniak has been here in the past, spouting his assertions, but not the evidence. He said everything was in his book.

Prometheus, the keeper of A Photon In The Darkness, finally had enough, and procured a copy of the silly thing, so that we don't have to. Prometheus wrote a rather uncomplimentary review.

Alas, A Photon In The Darkness is no more.

However, we have the Wayback Machine.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120104114416/http://photoninthedarkness.c…

Don't forget to check out parts 2 and 3. The links on the left side of that page will take you there.

I promise the review is better than the poetry.

Clearly all those scientists who for 75 years classified Pluto as a planet were drinking from the crazy conspiracy Kool Aid too.

I'm having a hard time imagining what sort of relevant "changes in knowledge or understanding over time" you suppose are going to occur in the field of statistics, because the data set isn't going to change. Hooker's paper based on it is just plain shoddy.

P.S. I've probably said this before, but as an undergrad, I worked in the same lab where one of the discoverers of Sedna was doing his Ph.D. Fantastic guy; I wish I had gotten that level of support from the one that was nominally supervising me.

I wish I had gotten that level of support from the one that was nominally supervising me.

You need to stop letting others grade your fellatio writeups... first subpressions are often correct...

@Gotta love science
"And lastly. Who in their right mind apologizes in a txt?"

Thanks! Good point.

Of course, Orac suspects William Thompson may not be in his right mind.

Which goes to show that no matter what's actually going on with WT, it's not going to be a PR coup for the anti-vaxers. They'll have a spin that works for the faithful, regardless: Thompson as hero or traitor. But if WT stays with the Morgan Verkamp statement, there's no there there, vaccines are safe, and everybody realizes this is a quibble about how research data a presented in professional minutiae that no one cares about outside the field. And if WT actually DID text that stuff to Wakefield and wife, he's a loon who'll lose the 'scientific credibility' that makes his supposed 'whistleblowing' noteworthy in the first place.

@Narad:

Our advice is to write different from and averse to.
- H.W. Fowler (1858–1933). The King’s English, 2nd ed. 1908.

Eric Lund,
I disagree that it was naive and gullible for Thompson to have made his admissions and apologized to Wakefield, even against the advice of his lawyer. Many people have a conscience which eventually rebels in such circumstances from continuing to play the game: it is what makes us human, in the more elevated sense.

@Ms Parker - perhaps you could shed some light on exactly what Thompson was apologizing for? Because it wasn't as if the CDC was involved in the Wakefield affair....the whole flow of the text messages is just plain odd & doesn't even make sense in context.

Perhaps you should call Wakefield (don't you have his direct number?) and have him release all of the texts plus the audio recordings....wouldn't that set the record straight & get the rest of us to shut up?

Thanks for that comment CIA Parker.

Would you like to share with us your opinion of the DeStefano et al case control study-vs-Hooker's cohort study, Professor Parker?

Would you like to share with us the reasons why Hooker's publisher removed Hooker's study from their website (undeclared conflicts of interests on the part of Hooker and the peer reviewers), Professor Parker?

Could you ask Dan Olmsted and the other editors at AoA...or Andrew Wakefield, why they have not analyzed the both studies, to justify their support of Brian Hooker, Professor Parker?

I wonder if Ms Parker can explain why I keep reading and hearing about Hooker-Thompson-Wakefield on AoA, PRN, TMR, NN but haven't yet seen anything on standard sources ( CNN, CBC, BBC, Al Jezeera etc) ?

@Denice Walter:

Well, there were the CNN and Times.com article that highlighted the problems with Hooker's article and how unconvincing the whole thing is.

Citing the esteemed Orac's analysis, I should add.

@ Dorit Reiss:

You're correct. Also there was Ms Cohen.

I suppose it's been such a long time since the mainstream noticed the gist and failed to register all the convolutions of the tale on which others have perseverated that I just forgot.

Our advice is to write different from and averse to.
– H.W. Fowler (1858–1933). The King’s English, 2nd ed. 1908.

"Before writing this dictionary, Henry Fowler and his younger brother, Francis George Fowler (1871–1918), wrote and revised The King's English (1906), a grammar and usage guide later superseded by A Dictionary of Modern English Usage in the 1930s."

I cited the first edition, 4th U.S. printing (1950).

I disagree that it was naive and gullible for Thompson to have made his admissions and apologized to Wakefield

You also "disagree" with overt demonstrations of the frank falsehood of your robotic assertions, Cynthia, so this doesn't exactly carry much weight.

@Narad

The man clearly couldn't make up his own bloody mind. I'll stick with "from". :-)

Are you people serious? The authenticity of a screenshot? My children were vibrant before vaccination, now they're light is dim. You guys know this stuff is poison and Thompson was the head of that panel that said it was safe. He's come out admitting he lied implicating himself in a crime.

How could you not believe a man when he places himself in such a bad plight. Regardless to that, even Bill Gates said that, "We can reduce the CO2 footprint if we do a really good job with vaccinations and healthcare."

That's a weird statement if you don't understand that there is an actual program to reduce human population. But for those of us who know, well it makes perfect sense. Shame I found out too late. My kids' brains have been destroyed.

@Gusto - anti-vax bingo again...any chance that you might be able to think for yourself and not just parrot anti-vax lies from places like AoA....of course, the whole "Thompson was in charge" lie is new....the guy was just part of the team, certainly not the lead (hence why the study isn't the "Thompson Study").

As to the Bill Gates reference - seriously, don't you have any brains at all?

Improved medical care, less disease & better standard of living = less births (and a lower birth rate) which means slower population growth - you know, since parents know that their kids aren't going to die before age 5.

What an idiot.

We can reduce the CO2 footprint if we do a really good job with vaccinations and healthcare

Is there any chance of Gusto looking up Gates' TED talk and citing the words he actually used, rather than coming out with an unsourceable sentence?
My guess is "No".

That’s a weird statement if you don’t understand that there is an actual program to reduce human population. But for those of us who know, well it makes perfect sense. Shame I found out too late.

Is anyone really dumb enough to believe this? Why would Bill Gates want to reduce the world's population anyway? Surely the more people who buy his products the better.

My kids’ brains have been destroyed.

Destroyed? Presumably they are dead if their brains have been "destroyed". That's awful, but why do you blame vaccines?

My kids’ brains have been destroyed.

OK, but what's Gusto's excuse?

Gusto: "You guys know this stuff is poison and Thompson was the head of that panel that said it was safe. He’s come out admitting he lied...How could you not believe a man when he places himself in such a bad plight."

You're seriously asking why anyone wouldn't believe a liar?

After a very enjoyable weekend with the inlaws (and one of the funniest Dr Who episodes I can remember), I'm catching up on this thread again. *Pluto* came up? Is this some new replacement to the Galileo Gambit, perhaps? The IAU reclassified Pluto, therefore scientists can be wrong and should be trusted or something? Never mind the Pluto argument is really a much older argument that's been going on since the discovery of 1 Ceres. I seriously wonder if Pluto would've even received planet designation in the first place had Disney not promptly named a popular character after it.

If the evidence that Pluto was a planet was unreliable, how can we trust anything scientists say about vaccines? Or something.

@Gusto Buckshot

-- Their official stance on the statement is as Lawrence has pointed out. However, past UNICEF program vaccines (polio, tetanus) did have the effect of sterilizing women.

http://lifesitenews.com/news/unicef-nigerian-polio-vaccine-contaminated…

"If you improve health in a society ... surprisingly, population growth goes down," Gates told CNN in 2008. "And that's because a parent needs to have some children survive into adulthood to take care of them when they're old."

http://lifesitenews.com/news/gates-foundation-explains-bill-gates-re-va…

CO2= P x S x E x C
http://co2psec.com/

Dorit Reiss
....'citing the esteemed orac'............Oh my.
How infinitely sad is such a description - of such a malignant narcissist.
The truthof this whole affair went skimming right over his head. Because he was never looking for it. This whole blog is his raison d'etre. It is an ego driven expression of his need for constant attention and applause.
You have shown your truest colors Dorit.

Tim, your source is a site called "Life Site News". Already I'm suspicious.

The best explanation I have ever seen of how improving education and health leads to reduced population growth is <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth"here

Why can't Wordpress have the intelligence to close a missing tag? Other platforms seem to manage it. Sigh.
This should work.

I just did a test on my IPhone. I looked at a text from a non-contact (when I had unread messages showing) where just the phone number showed up in the middle top of the screen. It said "back" I looked at a message from a contact.. it said "message". I also had a text message from an email address (a rather long email address). It did not say either "back" or "message" just showed a back arrow. So it seems to me it changes based on number of characters it tries to display. I'm no scientist though just an engineer so my little scientific study probably needs to be looked at more just like the CDC's. You should quit spouting off conspiracy theories when you are supposed to be a scientific type. I have only followed your blog since the break of this news because I wanted a scientific view of the information that has come to light. You shout insults and no tolerance at the other side like a grade schooler. I used to sit on the same side of the fence as you but I'm not naive enough to think the government is always on the up and up and will do what is necessary to keep itself intact. That includes omitting data on a subject that is as big as this. To me this is bigger than the Snowden whistleblowing. I never would doubt big brother spying on its citizens but covering data on disease issues by the CDC should anger anyone and at least be a wakeup call for investigation of any fraud that might be happening. Smallpox was found mishandled in a lab and within 3 weeks a congressional hearing. Why not in this case? Because it's being intentionally covered with sand as fast as the media and government can shovel it. It's a real crisis for them if this became mainstream news that the average person could see.

I have to ask this question. If you are so sure you are correctly basing your beliefs on vaccines are you calling every parent a liar that has seen their child regress the same day they take their child to "well visits" for their vaccine shots? Just curious. I wonder if you would be singing the same tune if you took your normal child to a "wellness visit" and came out with your child not being the same person. I bet you would be trying to scientifically prove what just happened to your kid. Also if enough people are saying this has happened don't you think it should be studied or looked into even more? I mean an official at the CDC who was a co-author of the study has said its not on the up and up. Don't you think we owe it to a generation of children and the public itself to do more independent studies on the subject? It only makes sense. I say quit burying your head in the sand and look for the truth and not what you are told is the truth. I trust the thousands of parents with a story to tell than I do a government scientist telling me I have to jab this syringe full of weird crap into my newborn child. Open your eyes and mind Orac and quit being so rude to parents that are obviously hurt and struggling to cope with why their children have to be injured. If this subject ever happened to become mainstream and lies were admitted by the government.. I would hope this blog becomes a great big apology to the folks you have tried to demonize by calling them cranks, whacks and whatever other terms you have used to classify these folks. It's sickening listening your back peddling trying to explain away what has happened whether you agree with Wakefield or Hooker or you don't.. Bottom line is William Thompson a co-author of the study says its BS. I guess he is lying about his part in a bad study? Why would he lie about that and jeopardize his career or worse put his life in jeopardy? I think you need to put yourself in someone else's shoes for a moment.

@LiamsDadTim:

I have to ask this question. If you are so sure you are correctly basing your beliefs on vaccines are you calling every parent a liar that has seen their child regress the same day they take their child to “well visits” for their vaccine shots?

No. We are saying that they misremembered. It's known that after Wakefield's "Case Study" came out, a number of parents said that regression had happened, even when the medical records contradicted their version of events. People can edit their memories.

I wonder if you would be singing the same tune if you took your normal child to a “wellness visit” and came out with your child not being the same person.

See comment about labile memory above.

Also if enough people are saying this has happened don’t you think it should be studied or looked into even more?

Funny thing: we hear all these claims, and there are compensation mechanisms in place, but when we ask for details, we get nothing. It's as if these injuries are just a game of "broken telephones".

I mean an official at the CDC who was a co-author of the study has said its not on the up and up.

Incorrect. He has said that he disagreed about the exclusion of some data. His own comments acknowledge that the others had valid reasons for excluding that data.

Don’t you think we owe it to a generation of children and the public itself to do more independent studies on the subject?

We have DONE the studies. There has been a metaanalysis looking at all the studies and it totalled in excess of 11 million individuals. In a sample size that enormous, if vaccines caused even a minority of cases of autism, it would have been detected. The vaccines cause autism hypothesis is as sound as phlogiston and geocentricity.

It only makes sense. I say quit burying your head in the sand and look for the truth and not what you are told is the truth.

Wakefield is a known and proven liar, and Hooker is dodgy.

I trust the thousands of parents with a story to tell [more] than I do a government scientist telling me I have to jab this syringe full of weird crap into my newborn child.

See my comments about labile memory, broken telephones and the surprising absence of parents who witnessed regression above.

Open your eyes and mind Orac and quit being so rude to parents that are obviously hurt and struggling to cope with why their children have to be injured.

Okay, now you listen up you plonker. I have an official diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. A lot of other commenters here are autistic, have autistic spouses or offspring, or two or all of the above. We do NOT appreciate being labelled damaged goods. Do try to remember that.

Bottom line is William Thompson a co-author of the study says its BS.

Thompson did NOT say the study was BS. He said he was unhappy about the exclusion of a subgroup. That's a big difference.

I guess he is lying about his part in a bad study? Why would he lie about that and jeopardize his career or worse put his life in jeopardy?

Once again, this was a disagreement over the exclusion of a subgroup. You are being melodramatic.

Apologies for the blockquote fail.

So what is this business about William Thompson delivering a truckload* of documents to Bill Posey's office.

*A metaphorical truckload, I have no information that an actual truck was involved, it might have been a sack truck used numerous times.

On a related and far more mundane question, what happened to my post from yesterday. It seems to fallen into the black pit of moderation never to be seen again, despite their being only two links in it.

LiamsDadTim,

You should quit spouting off conspiracy theories when you are supposed to be a scientific type.

The people releasing this information have recently produced a video comparing the CDC to Tuskegee, Pol Pot and Stalin that contains a scientist's voice recorded without his knowledge or permission. One of the parties in the text exchange behaved so appallingly he was struck of the British medical register. These are people we should trust not to manipulate information for their own ends? Wouldn't that be more than a little naive?

I have only followed your blog since the break of this news because I wanted a scientific view of the information that has come to light. You shout insults and no tolerance at the other side like a grade schooler.

That's odd. I have found the explanations of the science here very useful. Where are the insults in the post above? The only ones I can see describe the Hooker/Wakefield video as "vile" and Hooker's study as "execrable", both of which insult objects, not people, and both of which are entirely justified, in my view.

I used to sit on the same side of the fence as you

Of course you did.

but I’m not naive enough to think the government is always on the up and up and will do what is necessary to keep itself intact.

I don't think anyone is suggesting anything of the sort. Conversely, I think it is unwise to attribute anything to sinister machinations when incompetence or foolishness are equally viable explanations. Look at the evidence, always.

To me this is bigger than the Snowden whistleblowing.

To me this is a storm in a teacup. It seems obvious that there is no story here, unless Hooker and/or Thompson have more actually damning revelations to come.

I never would doubt big brother spying on its citizens but covering data on disease issues by the CDC should anger anyone and at least be a wakeup call for investigation of any fraud that might be happening.

That isn't what has happened. I suggest you read Orac's posts on the subject, and read some of the comments. Omitting data that is unreliable or correcting for known confounders is normal scientific practice.

Smallpox was found mishandled in a lab and within 3 weeks a congressional hearing. Why not in this case?

Because those that understand the science involved can see there has been no wrongdoing here? I would welcome a congressional hearing, as it might put a stop to some of this fuss about nothing, but I imagine they have more important things to worry about.

Because it’s being intentionally covered with sand as fast as the media and government can shovel it. It’s a real crisis for them if this became mainstream news that the average person could see.

I don't think so. I hope that most people could understand the science if explained properly, those who aren't already blinkered by their convictions that vaccines cause autism anyway.

I have to ask this question. If you are so sure you are correctly basing your beliefs on vaccines are you calling every parent a liar that has seen their child regress the same day they take their child to “well visits” for their vaccine shots? Just curious.

Not liars, mistaken, or assuming causation from a temporal association, the post hoc fallacy. Autism begins much earlier but is often first noticed at the same time vaccines are given. It is understandable that some parents might leap to the wrong conclusions.

In Madsen's MMR study, out of over half a million children that included 738 cases of autism and other ASDs recorded in the study, only 11 were diagnosed within 6 months of being vaccinated with MMR.

There is also the study that Julian alluded to, this study done in North East London in 2003, five years after Wakefield's fraudulent paper was published. In only 12 of the 118 cases of regressive autism did the parents blame vaccines. It was also clear that some parents had changed their view on what had caused their child's autism only after Wakefield's study was published:

Widespread public concern about the possible relation between autism and MMR began in August 1997, with the pre-publication release of information about the Wakefield study, which attracted considerable and ongoing media attention.[...] From August 1997 the reported presence or timing of regression changed in 13 cases. For six of these, regression was mentioned for the first time after August 1997, even though many health professionals had seen these children before this date. In seven cases the recorded timing of onset of regression changed in relation to MMR: six closer, one further away.

This is good evidence that some parents have edited their memories of the timing, and even the occurrence, of their child's autistic regression after they became aware of the claim that MMR causes autism.

I wonder if you would be singing the same tune if you took your normal child to a “wellness visit” and came out with your child not being the same person. I bet you would be trying to scientifically prove what just happened to your kid.

As distressing as this experience might be, assuming that the vaccinations caused the apparent changes in the child is a mistake. Look at the omnibus autism proceedings, where Michelle Cedillo was claimed to be developmentally normal before she received the MMR vaccine. But, "... displayed early signs of autism clearly visibly on family video taken prior to her receiving the MMR vaccine."

Also if enough people are saying this has happened don’t you think it should be studied or looked into even more?

Even more? Just how many more negative studies do we need?

I say quit burying your head in the sand and look for the truth and not what you are told is the truth.

Right back at you. Have you read the DeStefano study? Hooker's hopelessly incompetent "reanalysis"? Do you understand the difference between a case control study and a cohort study? If not, you should learn some statistics and read the blog posts here on the subject. I think you will see that the truth is not what you have been told it is. It is those who refuse to accept the large and continually growing body of evidence that vaccines do not cause autism who have their heads in the sand.

I trust the thousands of parents with a story to tell than I do a government scientist telling me I have to jab this syringe full of weird crap into my newborn child.

I don't think "weird crap" is a very scientific way of describing a medical intervention that has saved millions if not billions of lives. If you understood anything about vaccines you wouldn't use such emotive terms.

Open your eyes and mind Orac and quit being so rude to parents that are obviously hurt and struggling to cope with why their children have to be injured.

Where has Orac ever been rude to the parents of a disabled child? Please link to it, as I have never witnessed such a thing.

If this subject ever happened to become mainstream and lies were admitted by the government..

That's not going to happen. I think it will become clear that Thompson has grossly misunderstood the statistics involved in the studies he coauthored.

I would hope this blog becomes a great big apology to the folks you have tried to demonize by calling them cranks, whacks and whatever other terms you have used to classify these folks.

Where has Orac called the parents of disabled children "cranks" or "whacks"? Please be specific, or I will be forced to conclude you are lying.

It’s sickening listening your back peddling trying to explain away what has happened whether you agree with Wakefield or Hooker or you don’t..

I haven't seen any explaining away, I have seen cogent analysis of the science involved that has convinced me that Thompson is mistaken.

Bottom line is William Thompson a co-author of the study says its BS. I guess he is lying about his part in a bad study? Why would he lie about that and jeopardize his career or worse put his life in jeopardy? I think you need to put yourself in someone else’s shoes for a moment.

Based on what I have read and heard (which may be incomplete or taken out of context) I think he has made a terrible mistake based on his misunderstanding of the statistics involved in the studies he has been involved in.

Oh, and if you seriously think his life is in danger, it seems to me that you are somewhat hypocritical complaining that Orac's speculations about the authenticity of some texts is "spouting off conspiracy theories"!

Bleugh, "struck off", I meant

@ ChrisP:

I don't know about a 'truckload' but AoA says' 100,000' pages.
Recently, Hooker said that he had "tens of thousands of pages"** so who knows! These people aren't exactly the best with numbers though. Possibly it involved 12, 000.

-btw- if you peruse AoA, you'll notice that the references to the whistleblower story include Natural News, Breitbart, BenSwann etc.
OBVIOUSLY the mainstream media has blocked this earth-shattering news as it is but an enabling servant of Big Pharma and Big Government.

** on the Gary Null Show PRN a few weeks ago where he was a guest yesterday as well.

Maybe they're going the direction of Stanislaw Burzynski, who claimed (through his minions and shills) to have submitted "millions" of pages to the FDA on antineoplastons. :-)

well, el Honcho Grande** de PRN claims to have "counselled" 70,000 people-
which REALLY means *throw 3 zeroes after any number to impress the marks*
similarly, he has 5000 studies about ginseng, 2 million listeners and has invented thousands of new products.

** right, I know it's bad Spanish- what you think I pick up from *las Latinas* dance class?

So, LiamsDadTim @274 : you don't believe that 2 people would form a conspiracy to ruin Thompson's reputation, but you believe that the entirety of the CDC conspired to keep valuable information (sic) out of the hands of the antivaccine public's hands ? Really ? Nothing lopsided there, is there ?

100,000 pages is about 50 bankers boxes or so of documentation - which is actually very small when compared to the amount of paperwork normally generated.

Given the lack of scientific knowledge usually exhibited by the typical Congressman and staff, I don't know if they'd even know what they were looking at....

I would, DLC. It is a federal agency and that *fed* part is an occupying falsehood of a criminal *government* -- Ya bunch of self-loathing anarchists. **grins**

Denice, wouldn't it be el Queso Grande de PRN?

And you think, after all that, he would step into the noose by endorsing a fake text exchange on a mobile phone? It would be bound to come out, and about 200 journalists would be upon it in about 25 minutes.

I agree that it makes little sense, thus phrased. But if it were restated as...

"If he thought he could make large sums of money from it, would there be any dishonest act that was too crude or corrupt or clownish for Andrew Wakefield?"

...it kind of acquires a different complexion.

(I don't actually have any opinion about the specific issue of the veracity of the exchange, beyond that it can't be definitively established by internet detective work/DIY forensics.

But the involvement of Morgan Verkamp suggests that someone somewhere thinks he or she can use this to generate a qui tam suit. Or an excuse to raise funds for one. And AW appears to have some proprietary feelings about the story.

...

I don't know. I know that I know nothing, in fact. But based on presently available information, Thompson's actions just seem inexplicable to me in a way that's doubtless capable of many explanations that are beyond my capacity to imagine.

I wouldn't rule a mad, conspiratorial scheme of some kind out, though. Early days. But at least potentially, it looks kinda fair-game-y.. .

A lot of stuff does when you don't know much about the terrain or the players, however. I do admit.

Having no dog in the causality race, I think betting is still open on the Brian Hooker story. Just because he’s an obsessive and makes mistakes, it doesn’t mean that in ten years harassing CDC he hasn’t turned something up, even if it’s not quite all he thinks.

In fact, given the scale of a government bureacracy like that, it would be more surprising if he didn’t.

Agree.

What a bunch of smug wankers . You're seriously siding with CDC and drug companies . Are you all at work ?

@MB - as opposed to quacks, discredited doctors & a bunch of uneducated nitwits?

Sorry, I side with Science and Facts.

@michael

So, got any evidence for your assertions?

Or are you a smug wanker, like you seem to be, posting without any evidence?

"You’re seriously siding with CDC and drug companies ."

As opposed to "siding" with a wanker like you? You bet.

Dr. Gorski,

You and your readers have spent an inordinate amount of time and energy speculating about the veracity of the text message exchange I posted to my website The Truth Barrier, seen here:

http://truthbarrier.com/2014/09/02/breaking-news-cdc-whistleblower-text…

On your blog, people even Google mapped my building,published my address, and speculated about my son's age and computer equipment.

But you never thought to contact me, and ask me.

It's Nov 4, 2014, and this is a matter of public record:

I am inviting you to engage in a resolution of this, so that the questions raised can be answered. Typically, as a journalist. when you want to find something out, you start by contacting people close to the story. You ask questions. Unless, of course, you don't really want to know the answer.

Journalists don't rely on comments from readers of their blogs to find things out, nor merely consult their own thoughts and suspicions. They investigate.

So let's find out of the texts are fake.

I challenge you to go to the source--to write to Dr. William Thompson at the CDC and ask him if he had these exchanges with Dr. Wakefield and his wife.

Then I'd like you to ask me anything you like, about the texts.

Present me with terms of proof that would satisfy you and your readers that they are real not fake.

You want to know that beneath the name "William" on Dr. Wakefield's phone, there is a cell phone number belonging to Dr. Thompson, correct? We all understand that we are not at liberty to make this number public.

Let us agree that if the texts are proven real, you will publish the results, and apologize to me for the false and slanderous accusations that I published falsified materials.

My question to you is this: If they ARE proven real, what does that mean?

It means that Dr. William Thompson is a real, as opposed to "fake" CDC Whistleblower. It means that he was not at all "taken out of context" by Dr. Wakefield and Dr. Hooker. It means that he stands by what he said in his press release, namely that the CDC significantly altered (falsified) data, and deliberately sought to eliminate the link between MMR vaccines given at a certain time in neurological development, and autism.

If you do not think this is what Dr. Thompson means to convey, please say so here and now, and we will answer that question next. I am inviting you to pose, investigate, and weigh evidence to three questions, publicly:

1. Are the texts real?
2. Does Dr. Thompson confess to partaking in scientific fraud at the CDC?
3. Does Dr. Thompson feel Dr. Wakefield's career was unjustly destroyed, and that his own study, done right, would have backed up the paper Dr. Wakefield lost his career over?

Your reputation is at stake. I await your reply.

Journalists don’t rely on comments from readers of their blogs to find things out, nor merely consult their own thoughts and suspicions. They investigate.

And what exactly is your basis for promoting Orac from a blogger, who can publish whatever the hell thoughts and suspicions he wants on his blog because it's his blog, to a "journalist"? Oh, because it's convenient to you? Sorry, not a good enough reason.

So let’s find out of the texts are fake.

Actually most of us don't really care that much. There are much more interesting questions, such as:

Why would Andrew Wakefield release this information through a completely unknown and conspiracy-mongering AIDS-denialist blog?

What was he thinking?

On your blog, people even Google mapped my building,published my address, and speculated about my son’s age and computer equipment.

I seem to have missed this, but that may have something to do with my not giving a flying fυck about dime-a-dozen media nonentities, much less their sons' "equipment."

This, however, is the real paydirt:

I challenge you to go to the source–to write to Dr. William Thompson at the CDC and ask him if he had these exchanges with Dr. Wakefield and his wife.

One might think that, two months after the fact, Farber might have had the time to do this herself. Then again, perhaps he sensibly wants nothing to do with self-promoting riffraff.

My question to you is this: If they ARE proven real, what does that mean?

Not this:

It means that Dr. William Thompson is a real, as opposed to “fake” CDC Whistleblower.

What it actually would "mean" is that Thompson was an idiot to wander into a snake pit that led from the incompetent Hooker to the rapacious Wakefraud to frank gutter dwellers such as yourself.

Silly me... two months? No, six years.

Say France, Celia.

Typically, as a journalist. when you want to find something out, you start by contacting people close to the story.

Heh.

"In the book you compare [heterosexual HIV transmission] to Y2K.

"Well, it’s as nonexistent. It did not happen as much as Y2K did not happen. It was a classic mass panic."

Kind of an upside-down version of Great White Hope Thompson, eh?

"I don’t think I’ve ever said that HIV does not cause AIDS. I took one semester of journalism in college."

The text exchange was given to more than one journalist. I posted it first. Then it was out and that was that.

Please don't change the subject. I only want to hear from Orac. I know you are no fans of mine but that shouldn't interfere with our quest to examine whether the texts are real. We're not reviewing my career here. I covered the HIV debate extensively, yes. That's not relevant here.

You want ME to contact Dr. Thompson to prove that your accusations that the texts are false are baseless?

Blogs count as journalism.

But that's fascinating. You're arguing that this blog should not have to perform any fact finding because it's a blog?

I doubt that will be Orac's position.

Please don’t change the subject. I only want to hear from Orac.

Then you should have sent an E-mail, Spongecake.

The text exchange was given to more than one journalist.

ZOMG, please tell me that Attkisson was the one who had the sense to not stomp on a flaming bag clearly labeled "WARNING: Contains Dog Shіt" on the doorstep.

Narad:

I'm not a spongecake.

Why should I send a private email after my credibility is blasted all over this site, publicly? You're not making sense, again.

Is it "dog shit" if it is real too, or only if it is fake? This is why I want to have it out. You all should have no problem saying: "We have indeed speculated and even stated that the texts are fake. No reason we shouldn't be asked to come to the table to determine the truth, then." That would be honest discourse.

I remember this comment from I. Rony Meter @105 in response to Sadmar's exegesis of the auxiliary information distributed via EXIF fields:

By the way, you are posting too much information about her. We don’t need to know that for this discussion. No reason to post such details.

I remember this comment from I. Rony Meter @105 in response to Sadmar’s exegesis of the auxiliary information distributed via EXIF fields:

By the way, you are posting too much information about her. We don’t need to know that for this discussion. No reason to post such details.

The payload of Celia Farber's appearance (Fazzm) is Celia Farber.

^ I now see where the typo was. This one I'm going to do over:

I remember this comment from I. Rony Meter @105 in response to Sadmar’s exegesis of the auxiliary information distributed via EXIF fields:

By the way, you are posting too much information about her. We don’t need to know that for this discussion. No reason to post such details.

The payload of Celia Farber's appearance (Fazzm) is Celia Farber.

Blogs count as journalism.

No. Blogs can count as journalism. That doesn't mean that all blogs are journalism. Exactly how do you purport yourself to be a journalist without being able to grasp such a concept?

But that’s fascinating. You’re arguing that this blog should not have to perform any fact finding because it’s a blog?

A blog is simply some person or group expressing their thoughts through the medium of the Web. Are YOU saying that John Smith cannot be allowed to post to the world "I think the official story of what happened in Ferguson is damn fishy" unless he goes "fact-finding" and contacts the Ferguson police?

I'm sure it would be convenient for you if no one were allowed to point out the fishiness of YOUR stories unless they jumped through the hoops you say they should, but that ain't the way it works.

I was unaware that Celia Farber had any credibility to be blasted.

Celia Farber,

Thompson has had two months to publicly confirm that those texts were from him. He`s been remarkable silent in those months. If he wanted to confirm your blog posting, he could have replied in the comments there. He could have replied here. Or he could have issued a statement through his lawyer. OR - you could have contacted him and asked him to confirm or deny. You are the one "breaking" this story - isn't it your responsibility as a "journalist" to confirm your story?

The fact that you have his cell phone number is meaningless. It was available on his LInkedIn profile for weeks after Wakefield released his first video. At least he's had the sense to take that profile down now.

Why should I send a private email after my credibility is blasted all over this site, publicly?

You're an AIDS denialist. What credibility do you think you possibly have?

You want ME to contact Dr. Thompson to prove that your accusations that the texts are false are baseless?

Considering you were the one to publicise the texts to begin with, you should have done your due diligence and confirmed the veracity yourself.*

*This coming from someone who doesn't give a flying fig whether the texts are real or not.

Let me get this straight. Celia Farber is handed a text exchange. It happens to align with her beliefs, so she just posts it, accepting at face value that it is real. Then, when the veracity is questioned, rather than doing the investigation that she ought to have done right from the start, she says that those questioning her need to do the investigation?

How ever did this woman make it through school? I presume she did not take that attitude on papers. I can just imagine it now, the teacher takes points off because she did not properly cite and support her claims, but rather than revise, she tells the teacher to find the sources. Laughable.

Funny that someone who made a career of denying science and spreading mis-information about hiv/aids refers to Orac's 'reputation' being 'at stake'.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get back to Ms. Farber before now, given that I work for a living and that the post that she's complaining about is over two months old. Even now, I should probably not have allowed this silliness to have intruded on my work day. Hopefully, I can be forgiven because, I must confess, rarely have I been so amused by a "challenge." Its hilarity is epic.

It's hard for me not to note that Ms. Farber has things exactly backwards (as usual given her history as a notorious HIV/AIDS denialist). She apparently received an a screenshot of an alleged text exchange between William Thompson and Andrew Wakefield from Andy Wakefield and immediately took it at face value, based only on evidence that, boiled to its essence, consisted of, "Andy says it's legit.” The image goes viral, and the best she can come up with when people note that she’s sending around a picture of a computer screen showing the alleged text exchange. Then, when I (and others) point out reasons to doubt its authenticity and that it would be incredibly easy to spoof such a text exchange just by having an exchange with someone else and then assigning Thompson’s name to the phone number or e-mail address from which the iMessage was sent (or using various other methods), what does she do? Does she provide corroborating evidence demonstrating the authenticity of the messages? Of course not! Instead, she shifts the burden of proof to me!

Seriously, though, Ms. Farber: You posted it first without bothering to check whether it was legit or not. That was your job if you wanted to be taken seriously. I’m not going to do your work for you, and I’m certainly not going to try to contact Dr. Thompson. Having briefly been in contact with his lawyer, I know that he's aware of the things I’ve written about him; so it’s highly unlikely that he would agree to talk to me anyway. As for my “credibility,” let’s just put it this way. I was measured and discussed a lot of alternate explanations, conceding that the text exchange might actually be real. Let me reemphasize the point near the end of my post:

The other two possibilities are either that this screenshot was faked (which seems possible, although I could be mistaken, given that, despite extensive Googling I haven’t been able to find a screenshot that uses “Back” instead of “Messages” my search is not comprehensive) or that Wakefield faked a text exchange and made it appear to be someone named “William,” the implication being that that’s William Thompson, something that is incredibly easy to do. All you need is a friend with an iPhone to do it. There’s no concrete evidence to argue for or against this last possibility, but I also note that there’s no concrete evidence (just Farber’s and apparently Wakefield’s word) that the screenshot represents a real text exchange between William Thompson and Andrew Wakefield, either. That doesn’t even take into account the content of the text exchange, which is bizarre and stilted, to say the least. Even if it is real, it’s no doubt highly cherry picked.

Note the conclusion: I don’t know whether this text message was faked. There’s no slam dunk evidence that it was, but there are lots of anomalies to lead me to doubt its authenticity. More importantly, there’s no slam dunk evidence that it’s real, either. Unless you—yes, you, not I—can provide really strong evidence for the iMessage exchange’s authenticity, such as a public statement or affidavit by Dr. Thompson that he had that exchange, then I stand by my conclusions, which are that there are plenty of reasons to doubt the authenticity of this exchange. Also note that I never accused you of faking the text, just of being gullible and accepting "evidence" sent to you by Andy Wakefield at face value without any further investigation because its content aligns with your beliefs.

Finally, regarding my "reputation," I am incredibly amused that someone who is an HIV/AIDS denialist who has misrepresented the science of AIDS for many years and posted a BS explanation denying that fellow HIV/AIDS denialist Christine Maggiore actually died of AIDS and then took it down after she realized that her "explanation" was actually very consistent with a death due to an AIDS-defining pneumonia, would lecture anyone about "reputation." Hubris, apparently, thy name is Farber.

In any case, I suggest that you go up to comment #59: “Hey, worst case scenario, I get a little mud on my face, but such is life. I’m willing to risk being wrong sometimes.” I’ve already straightforwardly admitted that I might be wrong (although I still doubt that I’m wrong about this exchange’s complete authenticity). And guess what? If you—or someone else other than Andrew Wakefield, who lies, or Brian Hooker, who is complicit in Wakefield's lies—were to provide evidence irrefutable evidence that the iMessage exchange is legit, I'd admit my mistake and move on. The only change I'd have in my opinion is that Thompson has gone antivaccine; it wouldn't demonstrate that there was a conspiracy to "cover up" the "true" results of DeStefano et al. It would just demonstrate that Thompson has gone off the deep end, which is a conclusion I've pretty much come to since September anyway.

@ Todd W.:

Well, obviously her work passes muster at PRN where she hosted an internet radio show ( Radio Free Science)** and appeared in support of that outlet's host on a panel for his anti-vax film 'premier' amongst anti-vax experts somewhere on Long Island as well as on his broadcasts.

My mother always said be careful of what company you keep, it informs people about your qualities or lack thereof.

** amongst that network's conglomeration of luminaries like David Lewis and David Crowe.

Radio Free Science? Would it be far off to consider Science Free Radio would be more appropriate?

Ms. Farber: "Your reputation is at stake. I await your reply."

And later: "Why should I send a private email after my credibility is blasted all over this site, publicly?"

One thing about being on the west coast is seeing this exchange just as I start my day. It was hilarious.

Since Ms. Farber tossed away her reputation and credibility years ago, perhaps she should stop pretending to be a "journalist" and go into comedy.

Is it “dog shit” if it is real too, or only if it is fake?

It remains dog shit regardless of whether it is real or fake. Andrew Wakefield has told so many lies that touching anything Wakefield is involved in is going to leave a nasty smelling stain on your hands. This is something the William Thompson has no doubt discovered to his cost.

Your decision to post this exchange (other than garnering a bit of mirth from Orac's minions) has gained you no advantage except among the denizens of AoA and Natural News. At least there you are in company appropriate to the quality of your 'journalism'.

Enjoy the dog shit.

You make an assumption that I did not know the veracity of the texts before I published them. I did.

They are real, and you know it, and yes, I did note the third possibility, that the texts are real.

You're the one who has a relationship with Dr. Thompson's attorney. The challenge is that you take any steps of any kind to FIND OUT if YOUR OWN published suspicions are valid. You can't publish wild suspicions and accusations and then expect the recipient of the accusations to jump around and attempt to extinguish all your concerns.

A journalist takes responsibility for trying to find answers to their own questions. The way you do that is by contacting the parties involved and asking for comment on or off the record.

So, we've established that you don't do journalism. That you react with indignation upon being asked to lift a finger to find out whether any of your conspiracy theories are valid. That all your reader's brain bubbles about the interfaces of iPhones were and are absurd. That the only journalist present here, Brian Deer, tried to set you straight, but even that had no sobering effect on your thought processes.

That you can't even stick to the point enough NOT to throw Christine Maggiore's corpse into this. (Her cause of death was renal failure. And she had pneumonia and bronchitis at death.)

I am not in a position to start demanding affidavits from William Thompson.

In two months, he has in no way denied either sending the texts, nor objected to their being published.

Does that tell you anything?

I urged you to contact him, as a means of showing you that I DO know they are real, and inviting you to ALSO learn that they are real.

If you care, if you want to know the truth, try to find out. All I can do is state publicly that were you to unearth a shred of real evidence, from Thompson or anybody else, that the texts are false, I would heartily participate in the process of correcting the record. But they are real, so that won't happen.

You also have no evidence Thompson ever said his comments were taken out of context. Note the wording: "Taken out of context."

Where does he say that?

The context is given BY Thompson IN his own press release on Aug 27, in which he states that he regrets partaking in the research fraud at the CDC.

You can hear his voice on those recordings, can't you?

It doesn't matter what you think. The matter is moving toward congressional hearings and there are criminal implications in this.

Dr. Thompson expressed clearly that his conscience had become unbearable.

In your mystification about what "motivates" Dr. Thompson, I don't know how to translate to you what it means to have a conscience. That's the story.

Read or listen to his own words, maybe, as a start?

Journalism is nothing if not this: Listening.

@Celia - I, for one, would demand that all of the recordings be released, so that those "snippets" could be heard in context...I would also demand that all information be released at once, instead of this "drip, drip, drip" which only seems to enhance the desperate nature of the leaked information (i.e. that it was massaged to look like something it wasn't).

And why don't you quote Thompson's statement directly - because the word "fraud" is never used....

That's just bad journalism....go back to denying AIDS, you hypocrite.

I urged you to contact him, as a means of showing you that I DO know they are real, and inviting you to ALSO learn that they are real.

Is there any reason why anyone would be interested in the contents of your head in the first place? Jesus Christ, that thing on top of your neck-stalk led you to pitch a fit over a two-month-old post in the first place.

This, at least, is a refreshing admission from Ms. Farber:

the only journalist present here, Brian Deer, tried to set you straight

Read or listen to his own words, maybe, as a start?
That would be nice.

Most of Orac's commenters may not be journalists but they can certainly read so I suggest that they peruse the very informative website, *Truth Barrier* where they will learn that

- Ms Farber is such a successful journalist that she needs to solicit assistance in order to pay her bills ( see 'I need help'/ Donate button) Sept 2014
- She received an award from Clark Baker's organisation
- She had a show on PRN
- She appears to communicate with Mr Wakefield et al
- The posts about Thompson occured around the time as the aforementioned plea for financial aid.

( -btw- Baker, Null and Wakefield : Trifecta!)

Lawrence, perhaps soliciting from anti-vaxxers is more lucrative than hiv/aids denialism these days.

Celia Farber--

let me start with this: don't do to my community (autism) what you've done to HIV/AIDS. We don't need more people causing us harm.

Your claim to fame in this whole story is, what, again? Andrew Wakefield sent you something purporting to be text messages and you posted them. Wow. And you are still on this topic months later? And still haven't provided actual evidence that they are real? Don't lecture people on journalism. Show your evidence. Stop blameshifting.

What if the text messages are real? What then? Then Bill Thompson should resign all work on autism at CDC. Because a researcher shouldn't be engaged in fixing someone's reputation. That's a clear bias.

If he had stated that he wanted to bolster the reputation of someone pro-vaccine, there would be just criticism.

Let's look at that one purported text message now:

"I do believe your husbands career was unjustly damaged and this study would have supported his scientific opinion. Hopefully I can help repair it."

If you understand research, you understand why that would disqualify him from performing autism research at CDC.

"Does that tell you anything?"

Yep. He's not talking about anything to do with this topic. Not confirming. Not denying. Not running up attorney bills.

Should we just assume that you have the evidence because you say so? Trust you? Why? You assert you have evidence. Maybe you do. You don't share your evidence.

Trust Andrew Wakefield? Why? Andrew Wakefield has proven repeatedly that he lies.

I am aware of one person who attempted to contact Mr. Thompson. Thompson declined to speak. He declined to respond to emails. I believe Orac is aware of these attempts as well. Orac did contact Thompson's attorney. Should he keep calling the attorney? Because, we all have the right to run up Thompson's legal bills, even if we know that the information his attorney will give out is limited?

Again, I see a lot of blameshifting. And a huge focus by you on a very minor matter.

I'm a bit more interested in the fact that Andrew Wakefield has decided to ally with an HIV/AIDS denialist than the veracity of these texts. He's gone on lecture tours with New World Order types and 9/11 truthers, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/2011/06/07/its-official-wakefield-j…

"The matter is moving toward congressional hearings and there are criminal implications in this."

Because congressional hearings have helped he autism community in the past? (answer: no).

If there are criminal implications in this, it would be based on some evidence not yet made public. Andrew Wakefield and Brian Hooker's complaint shows a lack of substance.

And I like the vague and leading "moving towards congressional hearings". Really? By what measure? It's nice that you have an out in that you never said there would be a hearing, much less plural hearings, while implying that this has the attention of congress.

By the way, You did notice where Wakefield and Hooker had to change the wording of a key phrase in the analysis plan in order to make their argument work, didn't you? You did piece together the sequence of events and see that Wakefield and Hooker misrepresented them, didn't you? As a journalist and all, you did check the facts, right? You read the complaint and checked what was stated?

You asked what evidence Orac would accept as proof. And when given a response you build straw man arguments:

"I am not in a position to start demanding affidavits from William Thompson."

No one asked you to demand. You inserted that word. Orac stated that a public statement or an affidavit would demonstrate proof. Among other evidence.

And, let's also move on to goal post shifting. On October 2nd you were fine with the idea of a statement by Mr. Thompson being used as proof:

@doritmi @oracknows @littlepowder @DrWakefield Can I take that as a formal agreement? Statement OR phone records?— Celia Farber (@CeliaFarber) October 3, 2014

Now when that is repeated, you retreat behind "I am not in a position to start demanding affidavits from William Thompson."

You can go ahead and argue with Orac all you want. I don't care. Just stop using my community as your hammer for this and whatever other purposes you have. You, Wakefield and others are a bunch of carpetbaggers causing harm to a community to which you don't belong.

I think I found a way for Ms. Farber to make some cash. ;-)

It's sad how those who disagree with Celia Farber always come across as being so defensive. It reeks of weakness and fear.

"Is there any reason why anyone would be interested in the contents of your head in the first place? Jesus Christ, that thing on top of your neck-stalk led you to pitch a fit over a two-month-old post in the first place."

If you're willing to say they're false, then why wouldn't you? You must be very frightened.

Seems to me that Orac has it exactly backwards. If he doubted/doubts the authenticity of the text exchange, he should have shown a little gumption and simply asked this Thompson fellow to verify or deny. Posting a nearly infinite stream of obsessive-compulsive blather and ad-hominem attack instead hardly qualifies as a substitute for the minimal research it would have required.

Celia Farber:

They are real, and you know it, and yes, I did note the third possibility, that the texts are real.

There are serious doubts about that.

The context is given BY Thompson IN his own press release on Aug 27, in which he states that he regrets partaking in the research fraud at the CDC.

You are now lying through your teeth. He didn't use the word "fraud".
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/08/28/a-bad-day-for-antivaccinat…

You can hear his voice on those recordings, can’t you?

Umm, you did read Orac's comments about "taken out of context", didn't you? It's very easy to slice up words so that what a person says can be made to sound like the opposite. As an old saying goes, "Even the devil can quote scripture to further his aims".
We're not denying that that's Thompson's voice, we're saying that, given Wakefield's record of deception, these texts should be taken with more than a pinch of salt.

@Bennett - why do typical anti-vaxers believe that statements need to be proven false, before they are proven true?

The whole idea is that it is up to the first party to prove the positive, not for someone else to come along and prove the negative....we just don't accept things at face value, unlike the anti-vax brigade, which is why we like to see evidence first.

I know that's a hard concept to understand...although it shouldn't be.

Bennett, you are completely wrong. If someone has doubts about a claim, the only responsibility is to voice those doubts and the reasons why. It is up to the person making the claim to provide the evidence for the claim.

As for Xerocky, their comment is simply nonsense. I don't care that much whether the texts are real or fake. Either way it provides a clear insight into the agenda of Andrew Wakefield and clearly demonstrates his narcissism and greed.

You make an assumption that I did not know the veracity of the texts before I published them. I did.

They are real, and you know it, and yes, I did note the third possibility, that the texts are real.

Well, just to really rub our noses in it, why don't you spell out exactly how you know the texts to be real, in the form of a syllogism? You know, something like:

1) I have Andrew Wakefield's personal word on it that the texts are real.
2) Andrew Wakefield would never lie to me.
3) Therefore, the texts must be real.

Of course, that syllogism's just an example to show you the form we're looking for. If you tried presenting that as your proof, it would be tantamount to assault, as surely one or more of us would die from laughter due to 2).

Of course, the way you assert in the same sentence something you COULDN'T know, and don't even have reason to believe ("... and you know [the texts are real], ...") - why would Orac have to "know" the texts are real when you haven't even revealed what evidence makes YOU so sure they're real?? - definitely suggests that, when you say something is "real", you mean only that you've chosen to believe it hell or high water, not that it earned such belief.

Wow, just wow. Did I just read Celia Farber's comments about challenging Orac to prove the text messages are real, when she is the individual who posted them on her blog?

How did Farber get those screen shots? Did they arrive in snail mail in a plain brown envelope. Did someone hand deliver the text messages?

Hooker's paper has been fully retracted and the "CDC Whistleblower" story is very old news.

@Celia Farber

Perhaps you can point to the bit in your post where you report that you verified the texts were real. I can only see you reporting that the texts were provided to you by Andrew Wakefield and his wife.

Do you understand, now, why there is some question about the veracity of the texts? They could be real, but they could also be faked. And, given what we know of Wakefield's propensity to, shall we say, play a bit loose with truth, the latter is the more likely explanation.

And now, two months later, you come in here telling Orac to do what you should have done and what you still refuse to do: back up your own reporting. In your comment above, you imply that you did determine the veracity of the texts. Here's your chance to share with us what that evidence is, since you did not share it in your original report of the issue.

Surely the key point is made in comment #69. Even if Thompson does believe (counter to the evidence) that there was a real association in this specific subset of African American boys (the n seems to be uncertain - 14?), that would not alter the fact that the far more robust finding of a lack of an association in the rest of the study flat-out refutes Wakefield's claims. So if Thompson is saying otherwise, he's wrong. End of.

Narad, you are a fucking cunt, and a miserable excuse for a human being. May you contract a fatal illness and die a miserable death you pathetic cretin.

@Joe - stay classy.....and we're the "bullies?"