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Just thought it was interesting. I know the vaccine subject tends to pop up around here and many people are on the skeptical (if not tin foil hat) side of the spectrum, probably thanks in no small part to this guy's "research."
First this came out (one of MANY)
Then this:
First this came out (one of MANY)
Autism study dismissed as fraud
Friday, Jan. 7, 2011
A 1998 study that unleashed a major health scare by linking childhood autism to a triple vaccine was "an elaborate fraud," the prestigious British Medical Journal ( BMJ) charged Thursday.
The study by now-disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield was blamed for a disastrous boycott of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in Britain, and even had reverberations stretching to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
But despite the evidence against him, Dr. Wakefield, who was barred from medical practice last year on the grounds of conflict of financial interest and unethical treatment of some children involved in the research, continues to defend his research.
"The study is not a lie," Dr. Wakefield told CNN television.
He said he had been the target of "a ruthless, pragmatic attempt to crush any attempt to investigate valid vaccine safety concerns."
However, in an editorial the BMJ was scathing in its condemnation.
"Who perpetrated this fraud? There is no doubt that it was Wakefield. Is it possible that he was wrong, but not dishonest: that he was so incompetent that he was unable to fairly describe the project, or to report even one of the 12 children's cases accurately? No. A great deal of thought and effort must have gone into drafting the paper to achieve the results he wanted.
"The paper was in fact an elaborate fraud. There are hard lessons for many in this highly damaging saga."
The journal said there were those who wanted to believe that Dr. Wakefield's study was flawed, but the results still stood. "We hope that declaring the paper a fraud will close that door for good," said the editorial.
The BMJ said it was also running a series of articles from Brian Deer, a Sunday Times investigative journalist who had "unearthed clear evidence of falsification."
After the study was published, other scientists swiftly cautioned its subjects were drawn from a tiny group, without a comparative "control" sample, and the dating of when symptoms surfaced was based on parental recall, which is notoriously unreliable. Its results have never been replicated.
But the controversy unleashed a widespread parental boycott of the innoculations, especially in Britain.
Hundreds of thousands of children in Britain are now unshielded against these three diseases, said the BMJ. In 2008, measles was declared endemic, or present in the wider population much like chicken pox, in England and Wales.
Many experts have tried to show vaccines might cause autism. Newer suspicions have focused on thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative once used in vaccines and since removed from childhood vaccines. But no studies have shown a clear link. The U.S. Institute of Medicine has issued several reports saying there no evidence of a link, urging researchers to look elsewhere for possible causes of autism, which affects an estimated 1 in 110 children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
---------
BEHIND THE 'FRAUD'
THE DOCTOR
Dr. Andrew Wakefield was a consultant in experimental gastroenterology at London's Royal Free Hospital when he suggested he and his team had found a "new syndrome" of autism and bowel disease among 12 children.
According to the British Medical Journal and investigative journalist Brian Deer, at the time of the study Dr. Wakefield had been secretly paid hundreds of thousands of pounds through a law firm under plans to launch class action litigation against the vaccine.
The Lancet, which originally published the study, retracted it last May.
Other co-authors of the study withdrew their names from it several years ago.
Dr. Wakefield was subject to the longest fitness to practise hearing held by the U.K. General Medical Council (GMC). He was branded "dishonest," "unethical," and "callous" and struck off the medical register last year.
He has previously accused the GMC of seeking to "discredit and silence" him and shield the British government from responsibility in what he calls a "scandal." Dr. Wakefield, who still retains a vocal band of supporters, has reportedly left Britain to work in the United States.
THE STUDY
According to the BMJ, not one of the 12 study cases tallied fully with the children's official medical records. Some diagnoses had been misrepresented and dates faked in order to draw a convenient link with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) innoculation. It found: Only one child clearly had regressive autism and three did not have autism at all.
Despite the study claiming all 12 children were "previously normal," five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns.
Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination. Nine children had normal test results from their bowel but this was changed to "non-specific colitis."
Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded as part of planned litigation against the vaccine's manufacturer.
National Post
Friday, Jan. 7, 2011
A 1998 study that unleashed a major health scare by linking childhood autism to a triple vaccine was "an elaborate fraud," the prestigious British Medical Journal ( BMJ) charged Thursday.
The study by now-disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield was blamed for a disastrous boycott of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in Britain, and even had reverberations stretching to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
But despite the evidence against him, Dr. Wakefield, who was barred from medical practice last year on the grounds of conflict of financial interest and unethical treatment of some children involved in the research, continues to defend his research.
"The study is not a lie," Dr. Wakefield told CNN television.
He said he had been the target of "a ruthless, pragmatic attempt to crush any attempt to investigate valid vaccine safety concerns."
However, in an editorial the BMJ was scathing in its condemnation.
"Who perpetrated this fraud? There is no doubt that it was Wakefield. Is it possible that he was wrong, but not dishonest: that he was so incompetent that he was unable to fairly describe the project, or to report even one of the 12 children's cases accurately? No. A great deal of thought and effort must have gone into drafting the paper to achieve the results he wanted.
"The paper was in fact an elaborate fraud. There are hard lessons for many in this highly damaging saga."
The journal said there were those who wanted to believe that Dr. Wakefield's study was flawed, but the results still stood. "We hope that declaring the paper a fraud will close that door for good," said the editorial.
The BMJ said it was also running a series of articles from Brian Deer, a Sunday Times investigative journalist who had "unearthed clear evidence of falsification."
After the study was published, other scientists swiftly cautioned its subjects were drawn from a tiny group, without a comparative "control" sample, and the dating of when symptoms surfaced was based on parental recall, which is notoriously unreliable. Its results have never been replicated.
But the controversy unleashed a widespread parental boycott of the innoculations, especially in Britain.
Hundreds of thousands of children in Britain are now unshielded against these three diseases, said the BMJ. In 2008, measles was declared endemic, or present in the wider population much like chicken pox, in England and Wales.
Many experts have tried to show vaccines might cause autism. Newer suspicions have focused on thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative once used in vaccines and since removed from childhood vaccines. But no studies have shown a clear link. The U.S. Institute of Medicine has issued several reports saying there no evidence of a link, urging researchers to look elsewhere for possible causes of autism, which affects an estimated 1 in 110 children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
---------
BEHIND THE 'FRAUD'
THE DOCTOR
Dr. Andrew Wakefield was a consultant in experimental gastroenterology at London's Royal Free Hospital when he suggested he and his team had found a "new syndrome" of autism and bowel disease among 12 children.
According to the British Medical Journal and investigative journalist Brian Deer, at the time of the study Dr. Wakefield had been secretly paid hundreds of thousands of pounds through a law firm under plans to launch class action litigation against the vaccine.
The Lancet, which originally published the study, retracted it last May.
Other co-authors of the study withdrew their names from it several years ago.
Dr. Wakefield was subject to the longest fitness to practise hearing held by the U.K. General Medical Council (GMC). He was branded "dishonest," "unethical," and "callous" and struck off the medical register last year.
He has previously accused the GMC of seeking to "discredit and silence" him and shield the British government from responsibility in what he calls a "scandal." Dr. Wakefield, who still retains a vocal band of supporters, has reportedly left Britain to work in the United States.
THE STUDY
According to the BMJ, not one of the 12 study cases tallied fully with the children's official medical records. Some diagnoses had been misrepresented and dates faked in order to draw a convenient link with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) innoculation. It found: Only one child clearly had regressive autism and three did not have autism at all.
Despite the study claiming all 12 children were "previously normal," five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns.
Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination. Nine children had normal test results from their bowel but this was changed to "non-specific colitis."
Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded as part of planned litigation against the vaccine's manufacturer.
National Post
Then this:
Secret Businesses Aimed to Exploit Vaccine Fears, British Medical Journal Investigation Finds
ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2011) — Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced doctor who claimed a link between MMR and autism, planned secret businesses intended to make huge sums of money, in Britain and America, from his now-discredited allegations, according to a British Medical Journal investigation.
The scheme is exposed in the second part of a BMJ series of special reports, "Secrets of the MMR scare," by investigative journalist Brian Deer. Last week we revealed the scientific fraud behind the appearance of a link between the vaccine and autism. Now Deer follows the money.
Drawing on investigations and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the report shows how Wakefield's institution, the Royal Free Medical School in London, supported him as he sought to exploit the MMR scare for financial gain.
It reveals how Wakefield met with medical school managers to discuss a joint business even while the first child to be fully investigated in his research was still in the hospital, and how just days after publication of that research, which triggered the health crisis in 1998, he brought business associates to the Royal Free to continue negotiations.
One business, named after Wakefield's wife, intended to develop Wakefield's own "replacement" vaccines, diagnostic testing kits and other products which only stood any real chance of success if public confidence in MMR was damaged.
Documents reveal the planned shareholdings of Wakefield and his collaborators, and how much Wakefield expected to receive personally. Financial forecasts made available for the first time today show Wakefield and his associates predicting they could make up to £28 million ($43,367,082; €33,290,350) a year from the diagnostic kits alone.
"It is estimated that the initial market for the diagnostic will be litigation driven testing of patients with AE [autistic enterocolitis] from both the UK and the USA," said a 35 page "private and confidential" prospectus obtained by Deer, aimed at raising an initial £700,000 from investors. "It is estimated that by year 3, income from this testing could be about £3,300,000 rising to about £28,000,000 as diagnostic testing in support of therapeutic regimes come on stream."
Deer's investigation also reveals today that Wakefield was offered support to try to replicate his results, gained from just 12 children, with a larger validated study of up to 150 patients, but that he refused to carry out the work, claiming that his academic freedom would be jeopardised. His research claims have never been replicated.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2011) — Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced doctor who claimed a link between MMR and autism, planned secret businesses intended to make huge sums of money, in Britain and America, from his now-discredited allegations, according to a British Medical Journal investigation.
The scheme is exposed in the second part of a BMJ series of special reports, "Secrets of the MMR scare," by investigative journalist Brian Deer. Last week we revealed the scientific fraud behind the appearance of a link between the vaccine and autism. Now Deer follows the money.
Drawing on investigations and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, the report shows how Wakefield's institution, the Royal Free Medical School in London, supported him as he sought to exploit the MMR scare for financial gain.
It reveals how Wakefield met with medical school managers to discuss a joint business even while the first child to be fully investigated in his research was still in the hospital, and how just days after publication of that research, which triggered the health crisis in 1998, he brought business associates to the Royal Free to continue negotiations.
One business, named after Wakefield's wife, intended to develop Wakefield's own "replacement" vaccines, diagnostic testing kits and other products which only stood any real chance of success if public confidence in MMR was damaged.
Documents reveal the planned shareholdings of Wakefield and his collaborators, and how much Wakefield expected to receive personally. Financial forecasts made available for the first time today show Wakefield and his associates predicting they could make up to £28 million ($43,367,082; €33,290,350) a year from the diagnostic kits alone.
"It is estimated that the initial market for the diagnostic will be litigation driven testing of patients with AE [autistic enterocolitis] from both the UK and the USA," said a 35 page "private and confidential" prospectus obtained by Deer, aimed at raising an initial £700,000 from investors. "It is estimated that by year 3, income from this testing could be about £3,300,000 rising to about £28,000,000 as diagnostic testing in support of therapeutic regimes come on stream."
Deer's investigation also reveals today that Wakefield was offered support to try to replicate his results, gained from just 12 children, with a larger validated study of up to 150 patients, but that he refused to carry out the work, claiming that his academic freedom would be jeopardised. His research claims have never been replicated.
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