(No subject)

[Guest guest]

This continued attack upon Wakefield is maddening and ridiculous!

The man had NOTHING to gain by the study he did - he thought he had discovered a

connection that everyone would be thrilled to know - boy, was he wrong, because

he attacked a mighty force - the vaccine manufacturers - you know, the guys who

are supposed to be concerned about the welfare of our children and society - but

instead they are only concerned about the bottom dollar.

The fact that the media continues to be the voice for hogwash like this and not

report stories about parents who's children were normal until they were

vaccinated - even having video proof to back them up - is a travesty!

>

>

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogl\

e_cnn

>

>

> (CNN) -- A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood

vaccines

> was an " elaborate fraud " that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a

> leading medical publication reported Wednesday.

>

> An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the

> study's author, Dr. 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.

> " It's one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the

authors

> then to admit that they made errors, " Fiona Godlee, BMJ's editor-in-chief,

told

> CNN. " But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a

> deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying

> the data. "

> Britain stripped Wakefield of his medical license in May. " Meanwhile, the

damage

> to public health continues, fueled by unbalanced media reporting and an

> ineffective response from government, researchers, journals and the medical

> profession, " BMJ states in an editorial accompanying the work.

> Explainer: Autism and vaccines

> Speaking to CNN's " 360, " Wakefield said his work has been

> " grossly distorted " and that he was the target of " a ruthless, pragmatic

attempt

> to crush any attempt to investigate valid vaccine safety concerns. "

> The now-discredited paper panicked many parents and led to a sharp drop in the

> number of children getting the vaccine that prevents measles, mumps and

rubella.

> Vaccination rates dropped sharply in Britain after its publication, falling as

> low as 80% by 2004. Measles cases have gone up sharply in the ensuing years.

> In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any

> other year since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and

> Prevention. More than 90% of those infected had not been vaccinated or their

> vaccination status was unknown, the CDC reported.

> " But perhaps as important as the scare's effect on infectious disease is the

> energy, emotion and money that have been diverted away from efforts to

> understand the real causes of autism and how to help children and families who

> live with it, " the BMJ editorial states.

>

> Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism,

and

> other researchers have been unable to match them. Most of his co-authors

> withdrew their names from the study in 2004 after learning he had had been

paid

> by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers -- a serious conflict

> of interest he failed to disclose. After years on controversy, the Lancet, the

> prestigious journal that originally published the research, retracted

> Wakefield's paper last February.

> The series of articles launched Wednesday are investigative journalism, not

> results of a clinical study. The writer, Deer, said Wakefield " chiseled "

> the data before him, " falsifying medical histories of children and essentially

> concocting a picture, which was the picture he was contracted to find by

lawyers

> hoping to sue vaccine manufacturers and to create a vaccine scare. "

>

> Unfortunately, (Wakefield's) core group of supporters is not going to let the

> facts dissuade their beliefs that MMR causes autism.

> --Dr. Max Wiznitzer, pediatric neurologist

> RELATED TOPICS

> * Vaccines

> * Autism

> * Measles

> * Medical Treatments and Procedures

> According to BMJ, Wakefield received more than 435,000 pounds ($674,000) from

> the lawyers. Godlee said the study shows that of the 12 cases Wakefield

examined

> in his paper, five showed developmental problems before receiving the MMR

> vaccine and three never had autism.

>

> " It's always hard to explain fraud and where it affects people to lie in

> science, " Godlee said. " But it does seem a financial motive was underlying

this,

> both in terms of payments by lawyers and through legal aid grants that he

> received but also through financial schemes that he hoped would benefit him

> through diagnostic and other tests for autism and MMR-related issues. "

> But Wakefield told CNN that claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and

autism

> " came from the parents, not me, " and that his paper had " nothing to do with

the

> litigation. "

> Read autism coverage on " The Chart " blog.

> " These children were seen on the basis of their clinical symptoms, for their

> clinical need, and they were seen by expert clinicians and their disease

> diagnosed by them, not by me, " he said.

> Wakefield dismissed Deer as " a hit man who has been brought into take me down "

> by pharmaceutical interests. Deer has signed a disclosure form stating that he

> has no financial interest in the business.

> Dr. Max Wiznitzer, a pediatric neurologist at Rainbow Babies & Children's

> Hospital in Cleveland, said the reporting " represents Wakefield as a person

> where the ends justified the means. " But he said the latest news may have

little

> effect on those families who still blame vaccines for their children's

> conditions.

> " Unfortunately, his core group of supporters is not going to let the facts

> dissuade their beliefs that MMR causes autism, " Wiznitzer said. " They need to

be

> open-minded and examine the information as everybody else. "

> Wakefield's defenders include Kirby, a journalist who has written

> extensively on autism. He told CNN that Wakefield not only has denied

falsifying

> data, he has said he had no way to do so.

>

> " I have known him for a number of years. He does not strike me as a charlatan

or

> a liar, " Kirby said. If the BMJ allegations are true, then Wakefield " did a

> terrible thing " -- but he added, " I personally find it hard to believe that he

> did that. "

> CNN's Cohen and Miriam Falco contributed to this report

>