Doctor Behind Study Linking Vaccine to Autism Accused of 'Deliberate Fraud'

Makeuptalk.com forums

Help Support Makeuptalk.com forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Oct 29, 2005
Messages
10,288
Reaction score
15
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 5 (HealthDay News) -- An in-depth investigation just published in a prominent medical journal alleges that a decade-long effort to link childhood vaccinations with autism was really an elaborate hoax perpetuated by a British doctor who has since been banned from practicing medicine in that country.

The doctor's original research, first published in 1998, turned many parents away from immunizing their children, which some experts now link to recent outbreaks of illnesses that had once been well under control.

"The MMR [measles-mumps-rubella vaccine] scare was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud," Dr. Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the BMJ, which published details of the new investigation on Jan. 5, said in a statement. "Such clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare."

The story began with the publication in 1998 of a study led by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. Appearing in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, the report connected the MMR vaccine to autism and stomach problems in 12 children, a supposed new bowel-brain "syndrome."

That set off a worldwide furor, with many researchers condemning the finding as shoddy science. But parents of children with autism rallied around the main researcher. The result: immunization rates in both the United States and Britain fell while the number of new cases of measles -- one of the infections the MMR shot is designed to thwart -- climbed.

After closely re-examining the data, The Lancet issued a formal retraction of Wakefield's research last year. In May of 2010, Britain's General Medical Council barred Wakefield from practicing in the United Kingdom.

According to the new BMJ report, Wakefield -- a gastroenterologist, not a pediatrician or neurologist -- identified the new "syndrome" before he even began to collect data. By his account, the MMR vaccine caused both gut problems and regressive autism in children.

The BMJ investigation alleges that this hypothesis only emerged after Wakefield had been retained, with compensation, to work on a lawsuit to sue the maker of the vaccine.

In the Lancet study, Wakefield described the experiences of 12 children who supposedly had regressive autism, where a child seems to be developing normally but then regresses.

However, according to the BMJ report, only one child in the sample was diagnosed with this form of autism, and three of the 12 didn't have any autism diagnosis at all.

Nor did the children come from a random sample, as Wakefield had claimed. According to the BMJ article, all participants were selected based on having symptoms consistent with the "syndrome" and some seemed to have been recruited by anti-vaccination activists.

And the report further alleges that when children's symptoms didn't fit the hypothesis, timelines were fudged so it looked as if autism symptoms developed soon after MMR vaccination, even when parents and others said that the children were showing signs of autism priorto the shot.

In some cases where Wakefield claimed that problems emerged after the vaccine, he shrank the timeline so it would look as if they emerged within days, as opposed to months after, according to the BMJ report. And gastrointestinal symptoms were also made to appear more significant than they were.

One girl who appeared to have slowed development turned out to have a coarctation of the aorta, a genetic condition in which the aorta leading out of the heart narrows, the report stated, and once that was fixed her speech and behavior resumed at a normal pace.

"This is about as unethical as you can get," said Dr. Max Wiznitzer, a child neurologist with Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, in Cleveland.

"It's a very, very sad story. It was sad enough that the data in this paper was published and influenced scientists and governments and families to make decisions that just weren't right. But now to find out that the data was actually falsified makes it even worse," added Keith A. Young, vice chair for research in the department of psychiatry and behavioral science at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine.

"This really, really is one of the worst scenarios that's ever happened with scientific misconduct," he said.

And besides harming those children who got sick after not receiving a vaccine, the alleged fraud may have even set back autism research, experts noted.

"We had a measles epidemic in Britain, a drop in immunization rates in [the United States]. I personally know of children who were brain-damaged as a consequence of their parents deferring immunization as a result of this concern," Wiznitzer said. At the same time, he said, "[autism] research monies were diverted to disprove a hypothesis that was never proven [in the first place] rather than invested in exploring issues that would be of benefit to the public and to children with the condition."

When the BMJ investigators showed study data to parents who were involved in Wakefield's study, they said many parents were shocked and insisted that his versions of their children's cases were patently wrong. For instance, Wakefield sometimes claimed that the child's development was normal before the vaccine when, in some cases, it was not.

"[They're] claiming that he altered data and, from a science standpoint, you can't get any worse than to deliberately and knowingly change the data so that it fits your preconceived notion," Wiznitzer said.

Although the author of the BMJ piece, British investigative journalist Brian Deer, seems to suggest that greed motivated Wakefield to act as he did, Wiznitzer said that may not be the whole story.

"I think he truly believes what he's doing," Wiznitzer said.

As for Wakefield, his Web site shows him as currently living in Austin, Texas, promoting a book published last year, Callous Disregard: Autism and Vaccines, The Truth Behind the Tragedy, and going on speaking engagements.

Speaking in May on NBC's Today show, soon after British authorities stripped him of his right to practice medicine, Wakefield called the ban "a little bump in the road" and said his research would continue. "I am most certainly not going away," he said.

More information

Find out the facts on autism at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

SOURCES: Max Wiznitzer, M.D., child neurologist, Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, Cleveland; Keith A. Young, Ph.D., vice chair, research, department of psychiatry and behavioral science, Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and core leader for neuroimaging and genetics, Center of Excellence for Research on Returning War Veterans, Temple; Jan. 5, 2011, BMJ

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/648562.html?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

 
I remember hearing about this a few months ago.

I feel absolutely horrible for all the innocent children that did not receive proper immunizations. 

Their guardians were too busy listening to the quack and not following legitimate doctor's orders.

What is really sad is the parents/guardians that will still not immunize their kids, even after they know the truth...

 
How much money is lost by parents who choose not to immunize for fear of illness?

I'm such a skeptic now, that I'm more prone to think that his studies/claims may have had merit, but it's all a game of profit margins for the pharmaceutical companies. It's big business so if he blasts a hole in them, it's big losses...

 
Amazing how one quack doctor can gain such a huge following that would put their children in peril.

 
hmm this story should be linked to those threads where people cited this as a reason they didn't want their kids vaccinated or those people that refuse to get a flu vaccine.  Rather foolish

 
This guy makes my blood boil.There never was any such thing as vaccine injury or autism related to the vaccine schedule, he's made his name on deception, fraud and harming children.  Lack of herd immunity is a terrible thing; people like him and that witless moron science book-phobe Jenny McCarthy have no idea how bad the diseases are that vaccines nearly wiped out. It really bothers me as there is so much information available from reliable sites that make it crystal clear what vaccines do, what's in them and how they work as well as how the immune system works' there's no need for all the damage he has done. here's just one site that helps explain why I think he and people like him who spread misinformation as if it were fact are dangers to everyone.

http://whatstheharm.net/vaccinedenial.html

 
I wish some of the people who dont vaccinate their children would comment.  Im interested in seeing what they have to say.

 
That subject hits a sensitive spot in me. I could have told all these parents it's BS, this doctor prays on a sickness we still don't know really well nowadays. Refusing to vaccinate your kid on a link that has never been proven is sad and stupid. Frankly vaccines are a chance many people don't have in our world, do you know measles is coming back in France because of people refusing the vaccines? Not bad for a supposedly erased sickness, eh? And it's not even a money problem in my country, they're fully paid by our social insurance. I'm getting off my soapbox now, but parents should get more information before taking such a serious decision.

 
Originally Posted by magosienne /img/forum/go_quote.gif

That subject hits a sensitive spot in me. I could have told all these parents it's BS, this doctor prays on a sickness we still don't know really well nowadays. Refusing to vaccinate your kid on a link that has never been proven is sad and stupid. Frankly vaccines are a chance many people don't have in our world, do you know measles is coming back in France because of people refusing the vaccines? Not bad for a supposedly erased sickness, eh? And it's not even a money problem in my country, they're fully paid by our social insurance. I'm getting off my soapbox now, but parents should get more information before taking such a serious decision.
you are so correct, diseases that were supposedly eradicated such as Polio are making a comeback

 
Polio, hmmm

Where I purchase my groceries, I often talk to a cashier. She is my age (40s) and rides a scooter when she is not walking.

I recently asked her once, if she had fallen as she walks with a visible limp. She told me that she got Polio, as a child.

I was stunned as I believed that Polio had been eradicated in Canada 60 plus years ago.

She said she had not been vaccinated as a child - as a result she contracted the disease.

Time for people to wake up and realize that vaccinations can prevent serious illness or even death.

 
What about Dr. Sears? He's has a huge following in the US and promotes an alternative vaccine schedule for children. Should we start looking at him through thicker lens now?

I remember my doctor rolling his eyes at me when I approached him about it. I'm not a doctor so I couldn't fight him. However nobody in my family gets flu shots. Every time we the adults got it, we got the flu. So I'm not convinced that I need to get it, added to the fact that it doesn't immunize you against ALL the strains and they change every year...

 
I think there is a difference between what Dr. Sears talks about (different scheduling) versus the don't immunize at all stand point.

 
Originally Posted by Dragonfly /img/forum/go_quote.gif

Polio, hmmm

Where I purchase my groceries, I often talk to a cashier. She is my age (40s) and rides a scooter when she is not walking.

I recently asked her once, if she had fallen as she walks with a visible limp. She told me that she got Polio, as a child.

I was stunned as I believed that Polio had been eradicated in Canada 60 plus years ago.

She said she had not been vaccinated as a child - as a result she contracted the disease.

Time for people to wake up and realize that vaccinations can prevent serious illness or even death.
This was also the case with one of my uncles... my grandparents had 8 kids pretty much yearly.  By the 8th child, they had slipped on the vaccinations and their last child was missed on the polio.  He contracted polio as a child and he right leg is completely atrophied.  He walks with a pronounced limp because he doesn't really have the muscle structure to lift that leg.  He is quite bitter towards my grandparents because of this.  I would not wish this on my worst enemies. 

I think if you are a healthy adult, you can take a flu shot or leave it.  Those with compromised health like the elderly or chronically ill should.  The only flu shot we've had is for H1N1. It may or may not have prevented us from getting H1N1... none the less, we didn't get it.  A close friend did contract H1N1 last year, she ended up in a coma for 1 month.  She spent the next 4-5 months in rehab to re-learn how to walk. 

 
Here's a great resource for anyone interested in the vaccine shcedule:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=289

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand a fabulous quote to help with cutting down on the tl;dr factor...

If a child is aiming for 100 million antibodies, the rough maximum, then to reach that number by age 18, then they have to be exposed to 15,520 antigens a day and made 15520 new antibodies a day. By age 6 thats a total of 3,333,333 new antigenic exposures, and the vaccine schedule would account for 0.00045% of exposure.

From another perspective

“A more practical way to determine the diversity of the immune response would be to estimate the number of vaccines to which a child could respond at one time. If we assume that

1) approximately 10 ng/mL of antibody is likely to be an effective concentration of antibody per epitope (an immunologically distinct region of a protein or polysaccharide),

2) generation of 10 ng/mL requires approximately 10^3 B-cells per mL,

3) a single B-cell clone takes about 1 week to reach the 10^3 progeny B-cells required to secrete 10 ng/mL of antibody (therefore, vaccine-epitope-specific immune responses found about 1 week after immunization can be generated initially from a single B-cell clone per mL),

4) each vaccine contains approximately 100 antigens and 10 epitopes per antigen (ie, 10^3 epitopes), and

5) approximately 10^7 B cells are present per mL of circulating blood,

then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine).

Of course, most vaccines contain far fewer than 100 antigens (for example, the hepatitis B, diphtheria, and tetanus vaccines each contain 1 antigen), so the estimated number of vaccines to which a child could respond is conservative. But using this estimate, we would predict that if 11 vaccines were given to infants at one time, then about 0.1% of the immune system would be “used up†(5).â€
Compared to the antibody response to the antigens of life, the vaccine exposure and schedule is minimal, a wee dribble of a smidgeon of an immunologic challenge. The ability of the immune system to respond to antigens is vast, with a capacity that exceeds the minds ability to comprehend. The immune system is big. Really, really big. You just don’t realize how incredibly vast the immune system is. I mean, you might think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to the immune system. I hear Carl Sagen chanting billions and billions.

Normal flora/Antigens of life

We have, on and in us 10 to 100 times more bacteria than there are cells that make us. How many cells is that? About 100 billion (100,000,000,000) bacteria. That is just our normal fora. These represent maybe 1000 separate species of bacteria. These bacteria are kept at bay by the immune system. We go from sterile to a complex and enormous normal flora in months. In the first year of life a baby is exposed, for the first time, to all the bacteria of his parents and siblings and some from the family pet and environment as well. Thousands of bacteria that become its normal flora. An enormous number of organisms and antigens, thousands of times greater than the exposure from the vaccine schedule.

The number of bacteria that is your own ecosystem, of course, pales into insignificance compared to the bacteria in the soil, at about a million species per gram of soil, plus those in the water, on your pets, in the air etc etc. Millions upon millions of bacterial species everywhere you can look. Estimates as high as a billion different bacterial species in the world. And then there are the viruses, the yeasts, the moulds, the parasites, the mites. Perhaps millions more.

I see everyone and everything like “Pig-Pen†in Charlie Brown, but rather than a cloud of dirt, we are all in a cloud of micro-organisms. We are also exposed to the antigens of food and plants. Innumerable molecules our body is ready to recognize and respond to with an antibody.

These micro-organisms are kept at bay by the immune system. Each bacteria has multiple sites that can elicit an antibody response. It is not one organism, one antibody. The number of antibodies that the body develops against a germ depends on the the complexity of the organism which in turn determines how many antibodies are made against a particular organism.

We use the multiple antibodies made for some organisms diagnostically. For a simple organisms like HIV, we do a western blot and look for the presence of an antibody response to 8 different proteins. For Lyme, we look for antibody response to 10 proteins. For more complex organism like S. aureus we can make dozens of different antibodies.

Lets be conservative. Lets say that we respond with 3 antibodies to each species in our normal flora and we made 3 antibodies to 100,000 environmental organisms, about 100,000 fold less than what is out there.

That would be 303,000 antibodies. To make that many antibodies by age 18 we would have to produce 46 antibodies a day. That is about 5 times in a day what the entire vaccine schedule requires over six years. For just the normal flora, that would be about half an antibody a day, assuming three antibodies for each of the 1000 species of bacteria, again probably a gross underestimate. In about one month you would be exposed to all the antigens (and more) and make all the antibodies that are needed in the vaccine schedule over six years.

 
This wasn't about quack doctors so much as it was about making money in lawsuits. The scientist was *paid by trial lawyers to produce those results. That's the part that really makes me sick.

The trial lawyers wanted a "scientific study" that "proved" vaccines caused autism, so they could sue and make millions. It happens over here, too--mostly with cosmetics.

 
This does not change my stance.

I've been a supporter of 'educate before you vaccinate' since I had my daughter. I'm not going to sit here and claim that all vaccines are safe or that they aren't.

There are doctors who support vaccines and doctors who don't. I should just automatically go along with what Dr. Offit and his colleagues tell us to believe? No. He's the go-to guy every time there's a talk about vaccines and its potential dangers.

So, parents who have children who are either autistic or other, should have nothing to blame now? They should now just assume what? I don't think you can convince most parents who witnessed the change and are now living with it, that there is no link/connection.

I also find it rather insensitive and unnecessary to label anyone who refuses to vaccinate as foolish or stupid. It's a great thing parents are concerned enough to ask questions and to be cautious.

It's interesting how it's never mentioned that Dr. Offit is a vaccine patent holder. He approved adding a vaccine for rotavirus while on the CDC advisory committee on immunization practices while he was beginning the patent process for Rotateq, a vaccine for rotavirus. Let's not forget he profited at least $29 million promoting vaccines. He's also been quoted as saying babies can tolerate, "10,000 vaccines at once".

Unlike most other patented products, the market for mandated childhood vaccines is created not by consumer demand, but by the recommendation of an appointed body called the ACIP. In a single vote, ACIP can create a commercial market for a new vaccine that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in a matter of months.

Reese: I believe that it's a profit driven industry. There's no doubt in my mind.
That is all I have to say. I will no longer be posting on this thread.

 
Johnnie,  its interesting you mentioned the financial motivation as a reason for promoting vaccines.  Its that same point that is being directed at Dr. Wakefield as his motivation for creating this linkage between Autism and vaccination.  There were financial considerations as part of a big law suit. If you're questioning the motivation of Doctors affiliated with drug manufacturing companies etc then why not keep the United States out of the discussion.   Take a look a countries with public health systems, like Canada or the UK and these countries (not beholden to the United States) clearly think that it makes sense from a public health standpoint to recommend vaccinations against some very deadly diseases that used to be prevalent.  

I think it is still a valid decision to recommend vaccinations even if it were true that vaccinations caused autism (which has never been proven)  just because it would always be better to be alive with Autism than dead with some of these horrendous diseases that we are routinely vaccinated for.

Emily, in answer to your question Jenny McCarthy was asked about her response and she declined to comment.

 
@Darla: She should have something to say since she did "cure" her sons autism.

I dont think this will change anything in the US anyway.  Americans live in a bubble separate from the rest of the world. lol

 
Originally Posted by emily_3383 /img/forum/go_quote.gif

@Darla: She should have something to say since she did "cure" her sons autism.

I dont think this will change anything in the US anyway.  Americans live in a bubble separate from the rest of the world. lol

Oh yeah, that's right she did "Cure" her kid. Heal, I guess, would be the word.

It's too bad that people can have all the information about what is in vaccines, how they work, how the immune systems works, and how herd immunity works/is destroyed when enough parents decide their kid doesn't need vaccinations against diseases vaccines can prevent, and still think vaccines are a problem instead of a solution. In nursing school, we watched videos of the diseases that the vaccines prevent; it's horrid, really horrid, watching kids with...whooping cough, for example, coughing up so much foaming spit from their lungs that they appear to be vomiting mr Bubble soap onto their chests, and knowing that so many kids suffocated like that, unable to draw a normal breath.

Johnny, you say you'll  no  longer post in this thread--your choice, like everything else in life. But if you're still reading it, I very strongly urge you to  reread my posts or even contact me privately if you decide you want to learn more about vaccines and autism. I've posted some pretty clear information about how vaccines work and how  the immune system works.

Offit's remark about how many vaccines a child's immune system can handle was not hiim wanting to vaccinate kids 10,000 times, it's about trying to communicate the safety of vaccines re: the immune system when you compare the vaccine schedule against the antigens/immune response to life itself. He hasn't been selling a vaccine based on BS and contrived research like Wakefield did. He's selling something that works. Wakefield's influence has been nothing but deleterious to everyone; here's a quote from the blog Sciencebasedmedicine regarding some of the damage he's caused:

More importantly, the controversy appeared to affect parental decision-making. Uptake rates for MMR in England fell from 87.4% in 2000-01 to 79.9% in 2003-04, the lowest figure at any time since the widespread introduction of the triple vaccine in 1990-91. The decrease was especially significant given that the single vaccines alternative was only available from private medical clinics, at a cost of around £200.

The Wakefield study has been widely discredited, and MMR uptake has recovered to an extent: in 2007 vaccination rates stood at 84.6%. Meanwhile, measles notifications in 2006 and 2007 were the highest for almost a decade. (Reference)â€

Autism's signs, the  behavioral and developmental 'milestones' missed by kids become obvious at about the same time as they get vaccines--correlation does not prove causation, no matter how upsetting the correlation is to parents. And that's another thing--of course parents want something to blame besides random fate/genetics/"Sorry, we don't know for sure yet" as the cause of their kids' autism. A vaccine would be a lovely, simple scapegoat. But arguing that since there's no established cause yet doesn't make it ok to blame vaccines that are given at the same time signs of autism are becoming apparent--there's no link shown anywhere, except in Wakefield's contrived research.Parents need to blame the right thing, not the handiest thing. Arguing that blaming vaccines is ok is arguing from a standpoint of emotion, not arguing from facts and logic. If you can show me evidence of the contrary, that there's something in vaccines that's neurotropic that takes kids without autism and turns the into kids with autism, I'll believe it--if someone can show me facts, show me the how-to, not emotion arguments that they've got to tell parents something. Vaccine content lists are available to see; the levels of chemicals in  each vaccine dose and how each ingredient is metabolized in the human body is also easily found. There is nothing to be afraid of in them, and as I said, vaccines are not neurotropic--measles, mumps and rubella, however, are neurotropic viruses with encephalitis a known complication. Life is safer with vaccines.

 

Latest posts

Back
Top