Slashdot Mirror
Famous British Autism Study an 'Elaborate Fraud'
Charliemopps writes "An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study — and that there was 'no doubt' Wakefield was responsible."
Sadly, there's a lot of money in junk science.
People are still going to ignore all the retractions from the real medical and scientific community in favor of Jenny McCarthy saying on TV that "Vaccines gave my baby autism!"
This has grown beyond Wakefield now. It's become a self-sustaining conspiracy theory, independant of it's source, and no mere facts are going to even slow it down. Parents want to worry, it's in their instincts to protect their children - if they can find no real dangers, they'll inflate anything that looks remotely threatening regardless of true risk.
It's a sad world when some money-grubbing fool can publish a fudged article claiming that a vital, lifesaving tool can cause horrible, debilitating disease, get international attention, and when he's finally disproven all the "concerned parents" of the world ignore him because The Man wants to keep their kids autistic, without sparing a thought to the possiblity that maybe The Other Man just wanted a quick buck.
Sent from my CR-48
NPR reported on it this morning as well: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/05/132692497/journal-study-linking-vaccine-to-autism-was-fraud
Sadly, CNN couldn't even bother to have a single citation to the actual source text that is uncovering this.
Of course not. The major news services want to present the illusion that they did some kind of investigation to get this info, as opposed to reprinting the AP wire stories or watching what the other networks are playing.
click, click, ka-ching!
Everyone knows how conspiracy theories work. All the wingnuts will just claim this is a political chop job designed to cover up Big Brother/Big Pharma's Big Evil plan. The BBC could play video next week of Wakefield snorting coke and doing an underage hooker, all the while shouting that he had falsified his results, and it wouldn't matter. At some point they'd probably decide that Wakefield was a deep-cover government plant intended to discredit the movement.
What really amazes me about this business is the behavior of the mainstream media in relation to the development of this 'story' in the first place.
Wakefields paper was just a collection of 12 anecdotes - meaningless in any clinical sense. He's clearly an idiot and should simply have been struck off and ignored.
You don't need to be an expert to work out that MMR and autism are both fairly common, and to find some cases of kids that have both is not that unusual - certainly not enough to start the newspaper and TV frenzy that occurred. That the media decided not to ignore him and tried instead to promote the scare, is to their great shame.
What is also incredible is the fact that that media deliberately ignored studies that proved no connection at all between MMR and autism.
It's appalling that this effort to boost ratings almost certainly cost the lives of infants and probably still does.
Why is this making the news now?
Because this not only debunks the study (which has been debunked for a few years now), it proves Wakefield manufactured the entire thing. He altered data, misrepresenting each case -- for instance, while Wakefield claimed none of the subjects exhibited signs of autism, medical records show that 5 of the 12 had already been shown to have autism. Further investigation shows that all twelve cases had been misrepresented to various degrees.
Also, Wakefield misrepresented the study to the doctors from whom he received referrals. He called it a "clinical trial," not a study.
Basically, this investigation proves that Wakefield was not simply careless; he intentionally fictionalized the entire study.
We can no longer attribute to incompetency that which is demonstrably malicious.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The mortality of measles is about 0.3% - 3 kids in 1000 that contract it will die. Your sample size simply means nothing. That's why you leave epidemiology to the experts and don't recklessly endanger not only your kids but everyone they come in contact with by refusing vaccination. In my opinion, it should simply be mandated by law. Parents refusing to vaccinate are clearly unfit for their role, their kids are better off if their asshat parents get thrown into the slammer and the kids set up for adoption.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Thimerosal is not mercury. It is a compound with mercury in it with low bioavailabity.
That's like not eating salt because you're afraid of the chlorine molecule it contains.
There are countless pages out there discussing the dangers of chlorine, that doesn't make salt a hyper-deadly toxin.
Trolling is a art,
Any of them ever eat any fish, such as tuna?
My kids don't inject tuna into their bloodstream.
The earlier point was made that there's more mercury in a can of tuna than there used to be in a vaccine. You do realize that anything you eat eventually makes its way into your bloodstream...right?
You actually bred???? Sheesh.
Living With a Nerd
So a completely different vaccine has the same effect: autism! I have another explanation that is much more plausible: people who tend to believe in wild conspiracy theories have a 3 times higher risk of having children with autism.
Emphasis mine.
Vaccination acts as a sort of firebreak or firewall in the spread of the disease, slowing or preventing further transmission of the disease to others.[3] Unvaccinated individuals are indirectly protected by vaccinated individuals, as the latter will not contract and transmit the disease between infected and susceptible individuals.[2] Hence, a public health policy of herd immunity may be used to reduce spread of an illness and provide a level of protection to a vulnerable, unvaccinated subgroup. Since only a small fraction of the population (or herd) can be left unvaccinated for this method to be effective, it is considered best left for those who cannot safely receive vaccines because of a medical condition such as an immune disorder or for organ transplant recipients.
The more people who opt out of vaccines, the greater the likelihood of these diseases making a comeback. That's why you've never seen the measles or the mumps.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Herd_immunity
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
How about I piss in your cornflakes? What's the problem it's not piss it just has a small amount of piss in it.
If you were to bind the piss with the cornflakes and create a new, safe and tasty molecule then I would try it.
They drink recycled urine on the space station, btw.
Trolling is a art,
Even if thimerosal were mercury, it has no relevant place in the anti-vaccine argument since there was no correlating decline in autism cases when it was removed from children's vaccines. Autism diagnoses have continued to rise in the wake of the questionable thimerosal ban and the rising numbers of the unvaccinated, which all but confirms that thimerosal was nothing more than a needless distraction.
Anti-vaxxers still bring out the ghost of thimerosal because having an opportunity to name drop "mercury" makes them appear to be more serious and educated than they actually are. The first step in reintroducing rationality and logic to an anti-vaxxer is to nip that particular argument in the bud.
I completely agree with you and I like the salt analogy, but I wouldn't even give them that much leeway.
Chiropractors are not medical doctors. You may want to point out that fact to him.
Trolling is a art,
Like:
Data show the earth isn't warming on average.
The data that show earth to be warming on average is faulty.
The earth is warming but greenhouses gases aren't the cause
The earth is warming because of greenhouse gases of non human origins.
The earth is warming because of athropological greenhouse gases but it's good news.
It's not good news but adapting (increasing the climatization in my office) is cheaper.
In hindsight adapting was not the best solution at the time but it's too late now to do anything.
Because the final in-depth analysis has been published by the journal which originally published Wakefield's findings.
Wakefield's original fraudulent study was published in The Lancet in 1998, and fully retracted by that journal's editors in early 2010 (after the UK's General Medical Council found that he had engaged in serious ethical lapses in the course of his research). The commentary discussing the case and referred to in the Slashdot summary appeared in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Both are very respected medical journals, but they are distinct.
~Idarubicin
That's an even better example, but I didn't want to use it.
Yeah, you can actually figure out how plausible a scientific position is the more the facts change and people (are forced to) accept the new facts, but then still argue the same conclusion.
And it's not really even the same 'conclusion'. It's past the conclusion. It's the same 'So now that we've figured that out, the thing we should do is...'
If I stand there and argue, on a trip, that we should drive down, say, highway 141 to get to Gainesville, and it's pointed out that highway 141 doesn't go to Gainesville, and so I argue that we should drive down 141 to get some Taco Bell, and it's pointed out that there's a Taco Bell on the actual route to Gainesville, and then I argue that Gainesville is a stupid place to go and we should go to Lawrenceville down 141 instead, and it's pointed out while that's technically possible, that's not a very good way to get to Lawrenceville...
At some point, people really should realize I obviously have a motive to drive down 141, because every single plan I invent involves driving down 141.
Likewise, at some point people need to realize the climate change deniers have some sort of motive to not do anything about climate change. (What that motive is is rather obvious if you look at the funding sources.)
But even if you knew nothing who was funding that, it's clear there is some motive, because every. single. one. of their conclusions is 'We shouldn't do anything', no matter what facts they've decided to finally accept. It might exist, it might not, it might be us, might be the sun or volcanoes, it might be a good thing, it might be a bad thing, whatever it is, we sure as heck shouldn't demand people change their behavior, ever.
Same with the anti-vaccine crowd. First it was mercury in vaccines, then it was this study, now I'm sure some other bogus thing will come up. But every single solution is 'less vaccines'. Actually, if you look real close, you'll see every single solution is 'traditional medicine bad, alternative medicine good'.
People who sit and argue the same 'problem solution' despite the problem constantly changing are dishonest, and not scientists, and people need to stop listening and call them out on it the very first time they do that.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Personally, I think a large chunk of it is probably explained by higher rates of diagnosis. More kids who wouldn't have been label autistic back in the day are now being labeled. Whether it's really justified or not, is another question.
Bingo. Not a very popular stance, but I'm guessing it is the closest to the actual truth of the matter. We've expanded the diagnostic criteria of autism spectrum "diseases" to the point of being utterly meaningless. Around 90% of the people I was friends with in the early 90's (before the autism craze) would probably be placed somewhere in the autism spectrum if they were youths today. I, too, would have probably been autistic, or at least "suffering" aspergers. Luckily this was the early 90's and we all just got ADD/ADHD instead.
I am happy that the APA (organizers of the DSM) are planning on removing aspergers from the new addition, in order to force mental health professionals to either diagnose autism or nothing, which might cut down over-diagnosis levels a bit.
When I was first venturing into psychology as a field of study, one of my early professors was very quick to point out that everyone has symptoms of a very large array of listed mental illnesses, but what keeps you from being actually mentally ill is the ability to function normally. If you are capable of having long terms friends, a wife, a steady job, etc.. you probably are not "mentally ill". As "illness" generally (used to be) taken as "an impediment to normal functioning". This isn't saying such modern vogue diseases don't exist, but are VERY overdiagnosed. There are people running around proclaiming aspergers or adult-ADD who have large happy families, well paying jobs with long-term stability, and an active social life, these people are not sick, since they are functioning at a high level.
I'm not sure of all the causes of this largely purely social phenomena; but part of it is the huge pressure pharma exerts on doctors, and the fact that parents want results. If parents, or teachers, aren't happy with little Billy's performance or personality, then they will shop around until someone agrees with them. As a doctor, you might as well diagnose, because if you don't someone else will. My dad this this when I was young (mostly as a political maneuver in a divorce, with a bit of influence from some overworked teachers), he took me to around five doctors until one of them decided I must have ADD, and perhaps some flavor of clinical depression. (without ever actually talking to me).
Another thing is that parents ignore natural variation. Someone I know is trying to get their kid diagnosed with autism because she hasn't spoken by the time she turned 3 years old. While this might be unusual, it isn't unheard of, or even that problematic. It is well within the natural variation of human development.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
You have just perfectly described the CNN special I saw last night on TV about this. Anderson Cooper was using Jenny McCarthy as the counterpoint to the claims of fraud.
The "equal time for nutjobs" doctrine is killing journalism.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Because basing all of your ideas on shoddy research that has been proven to be falsified is never a good strategy, regardless of how much money you have. McCarthy is convinced she knows the cause of her child's autism, and all the scientific evidence (or lack thereof) in the world are not going to convince her to change her opinions. Her mind is pretty closed on this subject I would say. When you have ex-playboy models claiming to have better scientific knowledge of a disease than actual doctors in the field do themselves, it is time to take anything she says with a rather large grain of salt.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Sadly, there's even bigger money in Big Pharma.
Okay. Let's look at this clearly: Big Pharma is a mixed bag of positive and negative. They have undeniably provided products of great benefit to human health. And there is also undeniably many cases of them providing unnecessary vanity products, unintentionally harmful products, and products they knew were harmful or useless which they skewed data to get approved. I have lots of problems with Big Pfizer^H^H^H^H^Hharma.
Junk science is not a mixed bag. At best it causes people to get ripped off buying placebos, and at worst causes significant harm by making people not seek real medical treatment when they need it, or not vaccinate their kids so you get outbreaks of measels or whooping cough that affect not just their children, but the children of people who didn't buy into the junk science.
Please let us not talk about these things as if they are equal. There should be lots of money in legitimate pharmaceutical research and manufacturing, but we should also push to solve the problems with it. The problem with junk science, homeopathy, anti-vaccination movements, etc is the junk science itself.
The enemies of Democracy are