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Autism-Vax Doc Scandal Was Pharma Business Scam
Sockatume writes "In his second report, Brian Deer exposes how MMR-autism prophet Andrew Wakefield aimed to profit from the vaccine scare. Two years before the research that 'discovered' the MMR-autism link, Wakefield began courting interest in a hundred-million-dollar diagnostics firm. The doctor hoped to seed the company with government legal aid money and profit by charging 'premium prices' for new diagnostic tests to be used in vaccine injury lawsuits. By the time Wakefield published, the proposals had expanded into producing new 'safe' vaccines, two businesses to gather legal aid funding, and interest from partners including Wakefield's own hospital. The scheme ultimately disintegrated with the arrival of new leadership at Wakefield's hospital and ongoing scrutiny into his research."
Really? Someone was out to make money off of autism and vaccines? Say it ain't so!
I know it's not the same thing, but this sorta reminds me of that TNG episode where two planets were suffering from a plague, and the cure was on one planet...but the cure was also a narcotic. One planet cured themselves of the addiction, but kept selling it to the other planet under the false pretense they would die if they didn't continue consuming it (their symptoms were withdrawal, not plague death.) I love how at the end of it, Piccard is like "Let's get as far away from this system as we can. Screw these loonies, let them duke it out." Can't remember the name of the episode, but I know it was in the first season.
Living With a Nerd
And he will probably suffer no repercussions.
Dave
Now, I know RISC is cool these days and the VAX was pretty much the embodiment of CISC, but calling it autistic is a bit uncalled for.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
...I don't think that's egg.
Being a new parent right around the height of the Autism/Vaccination scare, this is a Big Deal. This was huge! We had lots of talking heads on TV telling people not to vaccinate their kids. Famously, Jenny McCarthy went on Oprah and told parents not to vaccinate their kids. Many doctors and parents LISTENED! If you read the articles, you'll see that as a result children died of easily preventable childhood diseases because parents were too scared to get the proper vaccinations.
I am frankly amazed that this turned out to be a scam and not just sloppy science research. I just cannot fathom the depths of this man's conscience.
The sad part is, the repercussions will continue to last for years and years. Even after this has all been revealed as malicious, willful fraud, I bet dollars to doughnuts that many parents will still believe it, and won't get their kids vaccinations, putting them at risk.
I'm normally a laid back guy but this one just makes me fired up.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
That's not egg.
... egg on her face
That's basically what the Japanese word "bukkake" means
"You know what I can't figure out? How is it that all these stupid neanderthal mafia guys can be so good at crime, and smart guys like us can suck so badly at it."
There are so many parents who believed (the media interpretation of) the first study that they kept their kids from getting vaccinated. As a result, it has been more common to see childhood illnesses which had been virtual eradicated with the help of vaccination, particularly measles, as well as some other more dangerous diseases. Lives have been put at risk because this guy gambled (correctly) that new parents are easy to freak out and take advantage of. Now there is the daunting task of convincing those same parents, who aren't going to want to admit they were basically taken in a huge scam and put their kids at risk because they were dumb, which means a large number of people are going to convince themselves the retraction is a scam/conspiracy/etc and that the original study was right.
Is there a degree of felony high enough to cover this?
Maybe, just maybe, so much power over life and death shouldn't be given to for-profit organisations?
Because then you end up with crap like this.
Hi, speaking on behalf of the medical field, we've known a bunch of this for years. Which is why the accusations from the Anti-Vax mob about "Pushing Poison" on behalf of "Big Pharma" was so infuriating. This asshole lied about MMR and other vaccines because he was pushing his own vaccine. He's done incalculable harm, for his OWN profit, and his supporters accused *us* of being immoral profit slaves.
And this includes all you soft-spined assholes who would take the stance of "Well, I'm not saying they're right, but maybe they have something, there are a lot of concerns right? What harm is there to letting the parents decide if they're uncomfortable?"
Hope the truth burns, folks.
This "researcher" is the total blame. Anyone who believed some soft-core porn chick with fake boobs over their physicians kind of had it coming - it's a tragedy that their children paid the price for their stupidity.
The link between so-called scientific research and making a dollar. I had a girl on Facebook post about some "HIV breakthrough" that could "cure" HIV / AIDS. I hated to rain on her parade but I posted previous stories from 2010 where there were "HIV breakthroughs" that proved to not work or be false, basically calling for investment in exchange to continue the research.
ticketswapz.com - Buy, Sell, Trade Sporting Event and Concert Tickets
There is one issue I have had since the beginning.
Assume it were true.
Assume all the autism is caused by vaccination (it can't be worse than that).
The autism percentage in the US in 2007 was 0.7%.
The chance a kid dies from diseases he could have been vaccinated against is higher, dunno the exact number and am to lazy to look'em up.
So these people think it's worse to have a kid with autism than to lose your child to a disease? Are these people insane?
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Famously, Jenny McCarthy went on Oprah and told parents not to vaccinate their kids. Many doctors and parents LISTENED! If you read the articles, you'll see that as a result children died of easily preventable childhood diseases because parents were too scared to get the proper vaccinations.
She's STILL DOING IT! She still says the same thing. Article in Huffington Post, dated TWO DAYS AGO:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jenny-mccarthy/vaccine-autism-debate_b_806857.html
I know children regress after vaccination because it happened to my own son. Why aren't there any tests out there on the safety of how vaccines are administered in the real world, six at a time? Why have only 2 of the 36 shots our kids receive been looked at for their relationship to autism? Why hasn't anyone ever studied completely non-vaccinated children to understand their autism rate?
These missing safety studies are causing many parents to approach vaccines with moderation. Why do other first world countries give children so many fewer vaccines than we do? What if a parent used the vaccine schedule of Denmark, Norway, Japan or Finland -- countries that give one-third the shots we do (12 shots vs. 36 in the U.S.)? Vaccines save lives, but might be harming some children -- is moderation such a terrible idea?
This debate won't end because of one dubious reporter's allegations. I have never met stronger women than the moms of children with autism. Last week, this hoopla made us a little stronger, and even more determined to fight for the truth about what's happening to our kids.
Amazing.
Is this actual fraud, or the kind of confirmation bias that goes on in science all the time? In other words, did this guy actually really believe his own results and invest accordingly, or did he fabricate his results in order to profit from the fabrication knowing it was a fabrication? There's a subtle but important difference.
The thrust of arguments seems to be that he intended fraud and a quick buck right from the start, or that he has been slandered and all will come out as he claimed once the dust settles.
But a more likely scenario is that he was convinced of the link between MMR and autism from the very early preliminary studies, so much so that he reached out for financial support and to the lawyers, expecting to not only prevent autism cases, but secondarily to make a buck from the evil pharma in the course of making them pay for their dastardly greedy mistakes. Revenge is all the sweeter when the revengee has to pay you for their mistake.
And in the end, so addicted was he to that end and his premature conclusion, that he deluded himself past the point where he could ever admit he had been wrong. When his data came out incompatible with his preconceived notion, he did not take a deep breath, count to ten, and reconsider his original position. He fudged the data to match his "reality" and passed the point of no return.
Yes, he deserves to be slapped around, but to say he planned this fraud right from the beginning is too facile an argument.
Infuriate left and right
At least no one was hurt. White collar crimes only hurt insurance companies right?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124165229009493675.html
I like the media. Everything is simple in the media. They can side with a certain viewpoint for a few years, implicitly calling everyone who doesn't agree, an idiot, selecting their guests and questions to only maintain the illusion of being neutral, while having a clear bias.
Then suddenly, something happens, new information becomes apparent and an endless stream of "it turns out that..." articles flood the public. Everything we proclaimed bad is now good, everything good, is now bad. Panic, people, for you were caught off guard again. The savior was the devil himself.
Media can repeatedly turn 180 on themselves and sell panic non-stop. They can even fabricate an issue where none exists, then as we recover, claim the opposite so we panic again. Really nice for ratings, and really suitable for pushing hidden agendas. Here's my world view: People's motives are complex. People's moral compass has more than two poles. Sometimes, good people becomes self deluded. Sometimes, bad people get things right. Sometimes, good studies fudge data, and sometimes, there is commercial interests behind a genuinely good cause.
Am I saying Andrew Wakefield was "right" and vaccines are "bad"? No. Am I saying get yourself all the vaccine shots, and all the seasonal flu ones, always because they are "good"? No. Because the world is just more complex than that. Some vaccines have helped us rid of serious conditions, and ultimately made and keep making the world a better place, while other are just peddled for profit with little or no scientific support behind them. I'm not going into details, because I'm not trying to sell you a certain viewpoint on this "scandal" as correct.
I'm only trying to bring recognition that in the media cycle we're in now, Wakefield is an evil incarnate who never even believed his own studies, who never ever had a honest thought in his life, and vaccines are as harmless as drinking purified water. You'll see one-sided "fact checks". You'll see journalist display clear dislike of Wakefield while pretending to interview him. You'll see them reiterate how wrong everyone always was.
Until the next cycle.
that it won't make a difference. Those who believe in a link between autism and vaccines will continue to do so, no matter what evidence to the contrary is offered.
I hope this is illegal.
his motives were profit based, just like the vaccine companies motives for distributing more vaccines are profit based.
That's like asking why people believe the earth is round. Big oil is paying billions to convince us that the world is round! We must fight this fraud!
But seriously folks... Dr. Wakefield's conclusion was wrong. His conclusion brought back diseases almost eradicated by vaccinations. Jenny McCarthy uses her "experience" over REAMS and VOLUMES of studies that PROVE NO LINK. I don't care if the BMJ gave Brian Deer a BJ to 'attack' Wakefield. That doesn't make Wakefield right. It doesn't make him more evil. I am so sick of these celebretards getting a bully pulpit to push their horseshit agendas (Oprah, I'm looking at you). STOP listening to famous people who don't know any better than you! (I'm speaking of the royal you in this case, I mean.)
I don't mind a little skepticism... but FFS, why in Jehovah's name are we giving anything like this even a MICROSECOND of our attention when vaccinations are SAFE and WORK? It boggles the mind. Wakefield has poisoned the well... it's going to take DECADES to undo what he and Jenny and Oprah have wrought... All because someone has an autistic kid and reads on the internet that MMR caused it. IT MUST BE TRUE!
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Pharmaceutical companies make relatively little money with vaccines. They make far more money on chronic disease and continuous medication.
The world is far better off with vaccines and "big pharma" than without.
Trolling is a art,
"Big Pharma is corrupt." -- Tom Insel, director of NIMH
As the parent of an autistic child I always thought this one was bullshit. I witnessed my sons development. My family was convinced it was a result of the vaccines. He was normal and suddenly he stopped all the babble. Started staring into space for long periods of time. I think I'm the only one who noticed it happening before the vaccines. Its like no one looked before that. At least now when someone tells me that was the cause I can at least tell them it was a scam.
I talked him into it because I own a bullwhip factory. Now I should start to cash in big time - but I won't because I'm going to give them away.
Having a bank account full of money is enough for many people. As long as they are not confronted by their victim, and the victim stays an anonymous number, people will mostly not feel any remorse.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Time for a public execution.
How is it this scumbag isn't in prison? I have known for years that this study was discredited, but the fact that it was actually a scam makes me furious.
Oh please. If she even hears about this, she'll just attribute it to a conspiracy against him.
Technoli
why did the BMJ pay Brian Deer to attack Wakefield
Points out that this is nothing new (true, but not widely known which is a good reason for a popularising item). And states "I strongly suspect that if there was enough evidence to make the fraud accusations stick that it would have been brought up at the GMC hearing" -- but as far as I can see that wasn't the subject of the GMC hearing, which was about Wakefield's unauthorised medical experimentation on infants..
Who funded Brian Deer
Doesn't seem to understand how freelancers can get paid if they are not on the staff.
Brian Deer’s Conflict of Interests
Claims that Deer had a conflict of interest and tha the BMJ didn't do proper checking of that, but doesn't say what the conflict of interest was or point to any evidence.
Dr Wakefield's Submission to the UK Press Complaints Commission
Wakefield's complain to the Press Complaints Commision, which the PCC suspended pending the GMC hearing and which Wakefield did not pursue after the GMC struck him off the medical register.
Andrew, is that you?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
executed. Seriously.
The problem with taking Picard's "solutions" too seriously, is that in his case it was other people's problems, and they were even forbidden to get too involved in them.
Sorta like how if a US battleship lands in the middle of a rapidly escalating trade dispute between the islands of East Bumfuckistand and West Bumfuckistan, the captain isn't supposed to drag the USA into it or do his own gunboat diplomacy. The _correct_ answer there is to get the fuck out as quick as possible, and not end up being the guy who started WW3. Let them sort it out or let the UN and diplomats sort it out, your job as a captain just isn't to do diplomacy.
Star Trek does give its captains a lot more room to, basically, be immature big kids playing soldiers, but that just makes it even less of a model to take in a real life situation.
In this case however it's not someone else's problem. The autism scare scam has caused thousands of deaths and a resurgence in diseases that were previously just about extinct in the western world, and it caused those problems in our own nations. They're not the problem of some other nation (or planet in ST's case), they're _our_ problems. We _are_ the ones who get to sort out the mess in our own backyard.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
(Story)
I got my vaccine last week too. Now all I want to do with my life, ever, is study Heath bars. Did you know that the word for toffee might come from a creole word? Anyway, my Heath bars are all nicely lined up, all 310 of them, because that is the temperature you have to heat molasses at to make toffee.
I am also developing an encoding language based on the 3 dimensional position of the holes in aerated sponge toffee. I believe it has applications to the theory of data storage on 3d hard drives.
Now what was that about the side effects of the vaccine again?
(/Story)
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
SARS, DDT, H1N5, CFC, SO2, WMD, CAGW, Y2K, MMR VAX ... the list goes on and on and on.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
90% of *everything* is crap - I keep on seeing evidence for Sturgeon's point. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Should we not spare 40% of children from DYING so that 1% doesn't get autism. That is easily worth the trade off.
Try saying that when it's your child, asshole.
Ok. Saving the lives of 40% of children is worth the risk of giving 1% of them autism including my own child. Easily worth the trade off. Your child isn't any more special than anyone else. Neither are any children of mine.
Some people are just going to be unlucky. Taking stupid risks like not vaccinating because someone hypothesizes (fraudulently as it turns out) that there might be a link between a particular vaccine and autism merely trades a theoretical risk for another well established risk. Don't get vaccinated and you might not get measles or mumps but some percentage of the population absolutely will. It's a roll of the dice. Taking a hypothetical risk over a well proven one is retarded.
Vaccines save lives. This is not in dispute. EVERY vaccine has side effects in at least some portion of the population. So does every medicine and medical treatment known to man. Unproven side effects in a few are not sufficient reason to not use a medication and certainly not reason to not be vaccinated.
I figure celebrities and average Joes are both about as likely to misunderstand things outside their fields of expertise, it's just that celebrities have a larger platform to talk about things they don't understand. Celebrities are people too. :P
I'm thinking more of celebrities' political opinions than autism/vaccine BS or $cientology, but that fit too.
Also different fields of expertise - conversely, doctors shouldn't and don't tell the likes of Oprah how to be an effective entertainer. Of course, some get self-righteous about the importance of their own field, evne with some justification.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I think you're faking it. Had you really been affected by a vaccine and developed autism, you'd have mentioned Celcius, Fahrenheit or Kelvin. You'd also have memorized that sugar (sucrose) melts at 186C, 367F, 459.15K.
Also, had you really developed autism, you'd definitely fail at spotting a sense of humour and take things literally instead.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Prime example of evolution, bad parents kill off springs.
They either overlooked it not understanding that those were symptom, or blinded themselves to reality.
"Try saying that when it's your child, asshole."
Hey idiot, if you and your significant other had 100 children, and you refused a vaccine protecting you against a illness with 40% chance of death, because the vaccine could make 1% autistic, that means you would rather risk 40 of your children to die rather than have 1 out of 100 autistic.
With such a line of reasoning as yours, I hope you stay childless, if you don#t already have children.
I got a tiger and put it in my backyard and have yet to be hit by a meteorite. Therefore having a tiger in your yard prevents being hit by meteorites.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Oh my.
Well, since I carefully put tags to indicate that it was all a joke, if you only think I'm faking that's a little worrisome! I mostly started doing the tag thing when the mods started missing some of my double-barreled jokes. There's new research though that there are other a-social continuum spreads than autism. I just took a try at a spelling-pedant / rain-man mash-up.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
All this fuss over one study? Amazing. Methinks they are afraid of something. By the By, anyone know how statistically insignificant the deaths were from either M M or R before the creation of the "mmr vaccine" yeah it was pretty low. A lot lower than the 1 in 150 that now land on the ASD spectrum.
http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/
I got a tiger and put it in my backyard and have yet to be hit by a meteorite. Therefore having a tiger in your yard prevents being hit by meteorites.
And therefore, my tiger repelling rock (I haven't seen a tiger around me since I acquired it) can be surreptitiously placed in someone's yard to cause them to be hit by meteorites!
The enemies of Democracy are
It's not like it killed anyone... oh wait...
This "researcher" is the total blame. Anyone who believed some soft-core porn chick with fake boobs over their physicians kind of had it coming - it's a tragedy that their children paid the price for their stupidity.
Yes, that's a tragedy. Children shouldn't (but so often do) pay the consequences for their parent's failings.
But it goes way beyond that. The children of parents who aren't stupid and listened to their doctors over Jenny McMommySense are still paying the price for the ones who were that stupid.
Because they were too young to be vaccinated, because they had an allergy, or simply because vaccines are not and never were intended to be 100% immunity for those who get them. Instead, they're intended to make it difficult for a disease to gain a foothold and spread.
Simply by creating larger pockets of the population in which the disease can get a foothold these idiots are potentially hurting EVERYONE's children. And that is simply not acceptable. Fuck Wakefield who should be in prison, fuck Jenny McIdiot, fuck all the parents who have no idea what horrors they are unleashing on themselves and the non-idiot portion of society.
"Thank you Darwin" some AC says? Darwin is laughing at you -- by idly standing by saying "Thank you Darwin" thinking only those too dumb to vaccinate will be weeded out, you're proving yourself unfit as your children could be affected too. By failing to counter this idiocy long ago, we as a society have been proving ourselves unfit. I can only hope this result will be the first step towards succeeding, but frankly I don't see how this is going to convince any anti-vaxxer. They'll just see it as another smear job and cover-up of THE TRUTH.
The enemies of Democracy are
Ah, well played
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
to charge him with crimes against humanity - though I doubt anyone has the guts to do it (including the EU). But it just might stop the next snake-oiler clothed in pseudoscience from practicing Death by Lucre.
A Nash equilibrium occurs when every player knows the equilibrium strategies of the other players and no player can benefit by changing their strategy whilst other players keep theirs unchanged.
In this circumstance, each player can look at the others and ask "are they being vaccinated?". If they are, it makes sense to not get the vaccine and avoid any side effects. If all players choose the alternative strategy of not being vaccinated, it would then be possible for some players to improve their outcome by changing strategy and going for vaccination, thereby swapping the large risk of infection for the small risk of side effects.
Thinking about this quickly, I think this shows that there isn't a stable equilibrium for this problem as whilst there is a majority of people being vaccinated the optimal strategy is to not get vaccinated but when herd immunity has disappeared the optimal strategy is to get the vaccine before being infected.
Nick
For *every* *single* I told you so post, I want to know how many had infants at the time of the peak of the hysteria or have infants now. The issue looks a whole lot different as a parent.
In the U.S., there's a complicating factor. Vaccine manufacturers are generally shielded from liability. Where is the manufacturer's disincentive for distributing deadly product?
Not every step forward in medical anything turns out necessarily good. Read up on Pharma's invasion of Psychiatry sometime.
Finally, the choice with my kid was old-fashioned single vaccines. More shots, but essentially the same product that was given to me as a kid. For reasons I really don't get, there was a great deal of resistance to this method by a couple of pediatricians. We just found a pediatrician that had it on hand and did one at a time with time between each one.
My wife buys into this stuff regularly, so my position was not immediately accepted. But she got to the point pretty quickly where one at a time was a good compromise.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Well, the Mail is well known for its medical recommendations...
http://kill-or-cure.heroku.com/about
Oops - forgot about this one too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTu7GLfrmUI
I would say that even "experts" in the field should not be blindly listened to. There is a reason that people should get second and third opinions on major procedures, and in most fields, there are controversies where even the experts are on different sides of the debates.
The problem is that if even experts can be mistaken, what chance does the average person have of being able to tell the correct experts from the incorrect or even more so from the outright frauds who are attempting to profit from misinformation.
One big example I can think of are the mattress ads claiming that your mattresses weight doubles in 7 years from dust and mites. As this is being reported as fact from a firm that specializes in mattresses, an average person may well believe it instead of using their common sense and realizing that the mattress firm would profit from spreading such lies.
Yeah, last year's flu vaccine bonanza world-wide sales due to all that fear marketing only reaped something like 6 billion dollars in sales split between a half dozen small medical companies. Just in time for Christmas bonuses.
But yeah, that IS actually relatively little money by comparison to all other combined drug sales. Amazing.
Though, I don't know about the world being better off with big pharma than without. People are fat and stupid as a direct result of food/drug companies and their policies. As with most things championed by Slashdotters; the idea is great, but the reality and execution are pretty damned corrupt.
-FL
FFS, why in Jehovah's name are we giving anything like this even a MICROSECOND of our attention when vaccinations are SAFE and WORK?
Because that's a blanket statement which isn't true all of the time, and you know it. There is corruption, greed and ineptness in the world, and to pretend that there isn't simply because we like the fundamental IDEA of vaccines, is foolish. Injecting mercury and formaldehyde and other questionable contaminants is a BAD idea even if it does happen to be done in conjunction with the execution of an otherwise GOOD idea.
In a black & white universe, it's easy to make choices. But our universe is filled with colors and shades, and that is why we give this subject our attention. It's how we learn.
People taking one side with great vehemence without considering the other really doesn't help.
-FL
Oh please. If she even hears about this, she'll just attribute it to a conspiracy against him.
She has heard about it and you're not too far off-base with her reaction. Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jenny-mccarthy/vaccine-autism-debate_b_806857.html
Do we get to persecute you if your child falls off a bicycle, is injured playing high school football, or is hit by a car crossing the street? All of these have proven to harm and even kill children. In fact in the case of the chicken pox vaccine, a child that is allowed to play high school football is MORE likely to be killed by it than a child that has not been immunized for chicken pox.
I have seen many an abusive parent. From psychological abuse, to neglect, to drugging them up for medical conditions that don't exist, to literally pimping them out in the sex trade. Not one of those people refused vaccinations. The only people that I have ever seen refuse vaccinations were people who have looked at the information, and made a consiouse decision to not get the vaccines based off that information. One can argue whether the information they got was good or bad, and one can argue whether the parents interpreted the information they got well, or poorly. Claiming that they were neglectful is intellectually dishonest, and it is encouraging parent NOT to look at the available information, but to just do what everyone else is doing. Mobs have many heads but no brains.
I am normally against death penalty, but in cases like this (endangering millions for profit) I think it might not be harsh enough.
When I read this : the business was to be launched off the back of the vaccine scare, diagnosing a purported—and still unsubstantiated—“new syndrome.” , I thought that approach to research sounded familiar.
Then it hit me. While browsing through the CRU FOIA files I recalled reading the "EURO4M_DoW_v2.doc" which outlined a set of "deliverables and milestones" for climate data (Figure B.1.3b. GANTT diagram for Deliverables and Milestones, on page 35, from:
Project acronym: EURO4M
Project full title: European Reanalysis and Observations for Monitoring
Grant agreement no.: 242093
Date of preparation of Annex I (latest version): 9 November 2009).
The document discussed in advance who would get how much of the grant money.
The autism scam worked the same way. In advance of their "theory" becoming practice, the autism scammers had already worked out how the pie would be sliced: Wakefield would get 37%, and the father of child 10 22.2%. The venture capitalist would get 18%, Pounder 11.7%, and O’Leary 11.1%.
In the CRU EURO4M document the "List of Beneficiaries" (their words, not mine) include:
* Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
* Met Office
* University Rovira i Virgili
* National Meteorological Administration
* Meteo Swiss
* Deutscher Wetterdienst
* Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute
*University of East Anglia (Climatic Research Unit)
*Météo France
One such set of CRU "Deliverables", out of around 50 areas of categorized "research", were:
"
* gridded high-resolution daily precipitation dataset for the Alpine region and analysis of daily to decadal precipitation variations (D1.1, M1.1, D1.2);
* European window of the GPCC dataset available for the EURO4M (D1.3);
* extended and updated ENSEMBLES gridded daily dataset for Europe (D1.4, M1.2, D1.5);
* new UEA/CRU data products for Potential Evapotranspiration (PET) and PDSI (D1.6);
* new satellite-based gridded datasets based on MVIRI (D1.7, M1.3, D1.8), MSG (D1.9, D1.10), Land-SAF (D1.11);
* datasets for the Mediterranean (D1.12, D1.13, M1.4);
* proposal for additional data rescue activities required (D1.14)."
Now, as a retired programmer I can understand how one can write a proposal for creating software and give specific "deliverables" and milestone dates for product delivery and sign-off. But, having done research in anti-Cancer metabolites in graduate school, I found it amazing that someone could write a grant proposal for Global Warming (a.k.a Climate Change) and promise a delivery date for data which would support the AGW hypothesis. Nature is NOT so pliable.
The comparisons between this scam and the AGW scam go even farther. Knowing the unethical, if not illegal, nature of their plans, the parties agreed to keep the relevant information secret, even from Freedom Of Information Actions. Except in the autism case, ... when Richard Thomas, at the time the UK’s information commissioner, traveled to the college’s offices and later served a formal notice, did they release the documents into my hands. . When Phil Jones got a FOIA request from Steve McIntyre, the UK Information Office went to the CRU and conspired with Jones to keep the AGW data secret. Of course, one has to ask that if the data did support the theory of AGW why would they want to keep it secret? McIntyre has proven to be a much better statistician than anyone at the CRU. IF the data showed what the CRU was claiming it showed, McIntyre could only punctuate their claims. Instead, McIntyre punctured their claims by showing how they fudged the data and, as the "HARRY_README.TXT" file revealed, created some temperature data sets for the 1960-2000 range Ex nihilo, a truly remarkable creation!
Contrary to the autism or CRU publications, for at least two centuries the standard protocol when publishing in science journals is that the scientist ALSO includes the exa
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/government-concedes-vacci_b_88323.html http://www.911truth.ch/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2012 Secondly, no "correlative study" is needed. This is physiology. There is a direct pathway by which mercury and aluminum damage the brain.
"The world is far better off with vaccines and "big pharma" than without." *Citation needed*
test.
Drew Pickles likes this topic!
... whether fraudulent or not, was based on 12 subjects. The innumerate media and public share some of the blame for not being highly skeptical about a study involving a 75% of the blame, but our government schools are not doing their job either.
If humans are mostly water, and beer is mostly water, then humans must be mostly beer.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646939/
and that is just one reference, there are others.
http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2011/01/deth.html
A doctor that supports both vaccination, provided they don't contain aluminum or mercury, and supports Dr. Wakefield!!! Quick, ignorant Slash Idiots, find some way to discredit him.
True, though those are separate issues from nonexperts speaking on a topic.
Yes, there's potential conflict of interest when those most knowledgeable about the industry have a personal stake in it
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
... The problem is that once you fuck up herd immunity, you've fucked it up for everyone, including the very young, the very old, and those with compromised immune systems. ... In short, and pardon my directness, but speaking as a parent, fuck those who don't get the shots for themselves and their kids right in their entitled, self-centred, arrogant asses. They and their spawn should be given the choice to get them, and then airdropped on a remote island with all the rest of the assholes who think that the chance of their precious little snowflake having a disability is more important than the life of other people's so they can't screw it up for the rest of us.
In short, and pardon my directness, but speaking as a parent, what about those who don't breastfeed their children for at least two years and beyond (WHO advised), and who don't get enough vitamin D, and who don't read about nutrition and "disease proof" their children?
http://www.amazon.com/Disease-Proof-Your-Child-Feeding-Right/dp/0312338058
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/infantfeeding_recommendation/en/index.html
And what about all those parents who spread disease by sending their children to day prisons so they can work, rather than homeschooling?
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/734486
Not to mention the socio-psychological fallout:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/prologue.htm
Should they and their "spawn" be airdropped on a remote island with all the rest of the "assholes" who think that the habit of feeding their precious little snowflake junkfood or putting them in school for convenience is more important than the life of other people's so they can't screw it up for the rest of us?
How many people would that leave in the USA? 1%?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html
Not to raise false hopes, but from there: "The causes of mitochondrial dysfunction are well known, specifically as it relates to metabolism and the brain, and I have documented them in my books "UtraMetabolism" and "The UltraMind Solution." They include environmental toxins (iv) -- mercury, lead and persistent organic pollutants(v) -- latent infections, gluten and allergens (which trigger inflammation) sugar and processed foods,(vi) a nutrient-depleted diet(vii) and nutritional deficiencies.(viii) These are all potentially treatable and reversible causes of mitochondrial dysfunction that have been clearly documented. I found all these problems in Jackson, and over a period of two years we slowly unraveled and treated the underlying causes of his energy loss which included gut inflammation, mercury, and nutrient deficiencies. Over time, the tests for his mitochondrial function and oxidative stress (as well as levels of inflammation and nutrient status) all normalized. When they became normal, so did Jackson. He went from full-blown regressive autism to a normal, bright beautiful six-year-old boy."
If you do only one thing, check vitamin D:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-theory-autism.shtml
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/another-autism-case-report.shtml
Vaccines may still be involved in a couple of different ways, for kids who are having problems dealing with various heavy metals, where they may be struggling before, but the hevay metals or other issues with the vaccines pushed them over the edge (especially in a vitamin D deficient child, since vitamin D is used in creating glutathione, the brain's master antioxidant). One doctor being discredited doesn't prove that some vaccines can't have side effects in some especially sensitive individuals.
A new way of eating that in six weeks your family would like as much as how you eat now:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Disease-Proof-Your-Child-Feeding-Right/dp/0312338058
At the very least, you'll probably live longer on that plan to help your kid longer.
We try to eat more that way, and take our vitamin D, and so on...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-theory-autism.shtml
Look into iodine deficiency too:
http://theiodineproject.webs.com/addadhdautism.htm
http://www.coffetoday.com/child-autism-associated-with-iodine-deficiency/903216/
A comprehensive approach to nutrition:
http://www.amazon.com/Disease-Proof-Your-Child-Feeding-Right/dp/0312338058
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1932134&cid=34740048
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1932134&cid=34740098
Also, from:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14401
"Merck spokesperson Amy Rose refused say how many trials Merck contracted to CROs or what percentage of the Gardasil subjects these contractors recruited in the Third World. She also refused to specify how, or even if, the company oversees CROs. Many consumers assume that the FDA carefully monitors CROs. But the agency hobbled by under-funding, politicization, and dependence on industry fees has few resources to assess foreign trials and relies on drug companies. "
On the point in your sig, and maybe a way to get better research by less conflict-of-interest in funding:
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/robots-jobs-and-our-assumptions/#comment-392
On keeping people healthy for cheap:
http://www.amazon.com/Disease-Proof-Your-Child-Feeding-Right/dp/0312338058
http://lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi111.html
http://www.iodine4health.com/
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html
http://www.bluezones.com/
But that's the problem -- there are no enormous profits in natural wellness; the only big profits are in palliation and treatment for sickness or random attempts at "magic bullet" wellness through phrama stuff.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Please see my other posts to this article, including these links and others:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html
http://www.amazon.com/Disease-Proof-Your-Child-Feeding-Right/dp/0312338058
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html
http://www.iodine4health.com/
The first link suggests that pretty much all autism is related to various issues like you discovered in time (there are just a bunch of them from vitamin D deficiency, to iodine defiency, to lack of omega-3s, to dairy, to toxins of various sorts in processed foods or, presumably, vaccines). From there: "Most neurodevelopmental disorders have common roots. But looking at only one aspect of such conditions will not solve the problem of autism. Current autism research is based on an outdated approach -- one that is something like blind men examining the proverbial elephant. Each researcher works in his or her own silo examining different factors and coming to different conclusions. Research that integrates, synthesizes and examines all the data on causes and potential treatments is practically non-existent. The mitochondrial dysfunction identified in the JAMA study I've been talking about is ultimately only one downstream symptom of many upstream causes. Other researchers have found systemic inflammation,(ix) brain inflammation,(x) gut inflammation,(xi) elevated levels of toxins and metals, gluten and casein antibodies,(xii) nutrient deficiencies including omega-3 fats,(xiii) vitamin D,(xiv) zinc, and magnesium, and collections of metabolic dysfunction related to quirky genes that make it difficult to perform chemical reactions essential for health in the body such as methylation and sulfation.(xv)"
The second and third links show why excessive dairy is pretty harmful for most people (even ignoring how most of the world is lactose intolerant). The fourth is something I'm just learning about at the moment (iodine deficiency, where dairy is often a primary source of iodine, so watch out for it without dairy or eating seaweed or supplementing).
Your son is lucky to have you as his Dad. You might want to still monitor for the other health issues and take pro-active steps to "disease-proof" your family on a diet of mostly vegetables, fruits, and beans (and some nuts, seeds, and whole grains).
As a four year old, my wife had surgeons open up her belly and take her guts out (and put them back) because they refused to listen to her mother who suggested she had a millk allergy (from an article she read) -- and it turned out, after all the trauma, yes it was an allergy to milk and lactose. Doctors (especially surgeons) seem to be trained to sound very confident even when they don't have a clue (especially about nutrition). Part of how it got that way, starting around 1910:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexner_Report
For down the road:
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.holtgws.com/
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://www.talkaboutcuringautism.org/medical/studies-about-vaccine-autism-link.htm
Mentioned here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/hxwhite/no-link-found-between-vac_n_715090_61080424.html
Although, as in my other comments, the issue may be a much broader one about dealing with toxins, dealing with immune system issues from vitamin D deficiency, and so on, where the extra heavy metal toxic load or allergic reaction from some vaccines is just one of many issues...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/01/breaking-news-statement-from-dr-andrew-wakefield-no-fraud-no-hoax-no-profit-motive.html
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/05/peer-reviewed-papers-support-findings.html
I'm not saying who to believe there; I'm just linking to his defense vs. Deer's accusations
See also for alternatives to prevent/cure/mitigate ASD:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-theory-autism.shtml
In general, for good health through better nutrition:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
And discussion comments here (pro and con):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jenny-mccarthy/vaccine-autism-debate_b_806857.html
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.