Bad Science: How The Autism Vaccine Scare Snowballed
Posted by Kate Tuttle at 4:45 PM on February 24, 2009
Jenny McCarthy as an activist, “Green Vaccines,” death threats against pro-vaccine doctors, deadly measles outbreaks: all sprang from one source, a flawed medical study with a tiny sample size, a lead author willing to fudge the facts, and a story the media found too fascinating to fully examine.
Writing in this week’s Newsweek magazine, Sharon Begley lays out the timeline of what would become one of the biggest medical fairy tales of the past decade — a narrative of corrupt pharmaceutical companies, poisoned children, and devoted parents. Too bad it wasn’t, you know, true.
As is now clear, the study published in the Lancet medical journal back in 1998 linking the MMR vaccine to autism (via intestinal problems) was just plain bad science. The study looked at only twelve children, for one thing. Worse yet, the lead doctor, Andrew Wakefield, fudged the facts. A decade later, ten of the twelve co-authors have disavowed the research they published, but as Begley’s story made clear, at the time the media and public found Wakefield and his findings not only trustworthy, but revolutionary. And he wasn’t alone; in 2000 U.S. Representative Dan Burton chaired a congressional hearing to look into the connection, and TV’s 60 Minutes gave it the old expose treatment. It wasn’t hard to paint parents as heroes (because so frequently they are, even when their facts are wrong), nor to deride the drug companies as villains (because, again, they often are). A story so delicious has a tendency to rob the media of its hallowed scepticism — how else to explain the major coverage of a study of 12 kids, when subsequent studies (such as one at Boston University that looked at two million children) showed zero relationship between the MMR and autism.
The story rode a wave of parental anxiety and media hype so big that it caused actual changes in behavior around vaccination — and here’s where, I think, Wakefield and his ilk bear some major culpability. As vaccination rates went down and outbreaks broke out, children died of easily preventable diseases.
The recent ruling by a special court that declared no connection between autism and vaccines has settled the legal question, for now. As for what happens in the court of public opinion, it’s clear that’s a far more complicated matter. The anguish felt by parents of autistic kids is real, as is the desire of every parent to protect her child. Let’s hope that getting past the vaccine witch-hunt will free up more energy toward finding causes, cures and treatments for people with autism.
To learn more about autism and vaccines, people may download the free podcasts entitled “Autism and Vaccines: Parts I & II” put out by Midnight In Chicago at http://www.mic.mypodcast.com.
There has been a HUGE increase in incidents of measles in the UK, all because of the false MMR scare. Measles is a serious disease that can kill children or leave them with lasting problems. There is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Hopefully this nonsense will soon be just a sad story for epidemiologists and medical researchers to read about.
Sunday Times Journalist In Cedillo Vaccine Case Controversy
Feb 2009 childhealthsafety
4500 US children whose US Federal Court MMR vaccine damage claims were undermined by a Sunday Times UK journalist, learn today the journalist admits to publishing stories based on his own unqualified opinions without advice comment or review by a qualified medical expert [full quote below]. [See also: Sunday Times Journalist Made Up Wakefield MMR Data Fixing Allegation]
The Sunday Times’ story “MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism” was improbable and shown to be false: Sunday Times Journalist Made Up Wakefield MMR Data Fixing Allegation. The companion story was amended online [18 Feb] with a statement “This article is the subject of a legal complaint” [Hidden records show MMR truth Brian Deer, The Sunday Times - February 8, 2009].
Journalist Brian Deer has also admitted a questionably close association with the US Department of Justice: [Sunday Times Journalist Challenged Over Role in US MMR Cases], was a defendant in litigation with Dr Wakefield and was recently revealed to be the original complainant in the controversial long-running UK General Medical Council proceedings against Dr Wakefield. The prospects for US children’s claims in the Federal Court have been damaged by the UK freelance journalist Brian Deer’s stories to discredit research into the link between MMR vaccine and autism in the internationally published UK Sunday Times since 2004. Research into the children’s conditions has been hampered and experts are reluctant to come forward as witnesses.
The DoJ was sending out just before the US Cedillo decision the now shown-to-be-falsely-headlined article in The Sunday Times of London by journalist Brian Deer, attacking the basis for the US children’s claims and published the Sunday before the Court decisions: Sunday Times Journalist Made Up Wakefield MMR Data Fixing Allegation 11 Feb 09 and Sunday Times – Sinks To New Low With Yet More MMR Junk Journalism 8 Feb 09].
These events are closely similar to the UK in 2004. Just before a crucial English Court decision throwing out UK children’s claims for legal aid to fund their claims for the same injuries the same journalist published similar articles again in The Sunday Times London unusually substantially based on the journalist’s own unqualified medical opinions. It was later discovered the Judge in the UK case was the brother of a director of MMR vaccine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline: British Government & Establishment’s Efforts to Deny Compensation to MMR Vaccine Child Victims
No other journalist has been writing the same kinds of stories ………………….
Kanner’s original study identifying Autism as a specific condition only looked at twelve children. But hey whats OK for Kanner isn’t OK for Wakefield, right?
The “Boston” study like the “Finnish” study and all the other studies promoted by governments did not “look at” any children. Zero, zilch, nada! They are epidemiological studies based on out of date, dusted down medical records. They are inappropriate as a research vehicle to establish causation.
Ten authors did not disavow the research they withdrew the ‘interpretation’ of the study but not the study itself.
The editor of the Lancet (Richard Horton) which published the study is now on record, and I quote:
‘The essential clinical findings remain unchallenged as far as their accuracy is concerned’
The reason the MMR/autism issue remains in the forefront is because of the compelling and overwhelming evidence of parents. Children are withdrawing into autism following MMR vaccination. Fact.
The problem with your article, is that it isn’t, you know, based on science. You are claiming that every single person in the world who thinks vaccines caused their child’s autism thinks so based on one study? How about all the other evidence out there based on the fact that glutamate affects children with the autism genes. Hydrolyzed gelatin is the source of free glutamate found in the MMR vaccine. Glutamate affects children with an autism gene that inhibits formation of glutathione. THAT is why the kids present with metal toxicity, they can’t get rid of mercury, even if it came in their tuna fish sandwich.
The evidence is so much more overwhelming than one single study: see my flowchart on autism based on the genes discovered that would predispose a child with mitochondrial disorders to cysteine metabolism problems – such as irregular heartbeat, epilepsy, and heavy metal toxicity due to taurine deficiency and glutathione deficiency.
Ma’am, are you really citing on recent ruling by the vaccine court as settling the legal question for now, when the following week that same court said the MMR DID trigger another child’s autism?(See the Bailey Banks case) This same court since 1998 has paid out damages for 1300 brain damage cases of people that has autism, but you, like the media, are ignoring every one of them.
While I appreciate the compassion you mention for autistic families know this: you were not there in my house or in the houses of the tens of thousands of parents whose children got a vaccination and decended into autism. Do you, then, like the govt. and media, dismiss us as having one mass hallucination?
Never discuss sex, religion, politics and now it seems, vaccination! Whether vaccination ‘causes’ autism is not really the issue here. It’s like ‘smoking causes cancer’. The tobacco companies still hide behind that fact that not all people who smoke get cancer, just as not all children who get vaccinated get autism. However, coupled with diet, food additives and other lifestyle factors, the simple facts are that more and more children are becoming autistic, getting asthma, skin conditions, allergies, glue-ear, behaviour disorders etc for SOME REASON. If there’s ANY doubt about the effect vaccination contents have on a child’s immune system, surely this calls for the most rigorous research? The only study on the long-term effects of vaccination that I can find is one done by Isaac Golden in Melbourne. He found very strong statistical links between vaccinations and childhood conditions such as asthma and eczema, and used a novel ‘reverse’ approach toward helping the kids with these conditions, using homeopathy. Quite simply, he treated the children exhibiting these conditions AS IF they had been damaged by the vaccination. If they hadn’t then there would be no change in their condition. If they had then they would get better. His results were so astounding that he published a book about them: “Vaccine Damaged Children: Treatment, Prevention and Reasons”. Surely as parents we have a responsibility to educate ourselves as to the best CHOICE for our children. For me, there’s enough information out there for me to question the SAFETY of vaccination, and Dr Golden’s own research into Homeoprophylaxis is compelling to say the least. Check out his work in Cuba with over 2.2 million people. Not a laboratory or epidemiological study.