Vaccination & epidemic

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes, a step toward controlling would be great, until prevention is possible.

[Clodfobble]

There is a blood test available. Until the doctors finish getting their shit together, a parent could easily have their newborn/toddler tested, or a pregnant mother could test herself, to help them make their own decision whether to delay vaccinations.

[Undertoad]

This one is pretty interesting and could be part of the answer.

Here's the best-written skepticism on it from a WSJ Health blog: basically the CDC lab was unable to find *any* of this virus. But that seems more likely to be a mistake, as the labs that did find it ruled out lab contamination. This bit of confusion will only force their hand to work harder on it.

[classicman]

Great news Clod. Hope is a wondrous thing.

[DanaC]

The case against the Wakefield in more detail:

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyl...pStories_ssi_5

Apparently it seems that it was way worse than just massaging the figures and not being thorough enough. This was outright and clear fraud.

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.

[HungLikeJesus]

What about motive?

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

[Shawnee123]

Yikes!

[HungLikeJesus]

I forgot to include this:

Godlee, the journal's editor-in-chief, 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."

[Lamplighter]

"We had a measles epidemic in Britain, a drop in immunization rates in [the United States].
B]I personally know of children who were brain-damaged as a consequence
of their parents deferring immunization as a result of this concern[/b]," 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."

I'm not a litigious sort, but I do wonder if these parents might have a suit to file...
if they can show they were dissuaded by Wakefield's fraud.

[Undertoad]

The BMJ article they reference:

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full

The curious case of child 11 and his father Mr. 11, an engineer, and what happened when journalist Brian Deer asked Mr. 11 to review the data Wakefield had used for his son...

Running his finger across the paper’s tables, over coffee in London, Mr 11 seemed reassured by his anonymised son’s age and other details. But then he pointed at table 2—headed “neuropsychiatric diagnosis”—and for a second time objected.

“That’s not true.”

Can Dad 11 be mistaken? So they go to the child's actual medical records:

Records show his behavioural symptoms started too soon. “His developmental milestones were normal until 13 months of age,” notes the discharge summary. “In the period 13-18 months he developed slow speech patterns and repetitive hand movements. Over this period his parents remarked on his slow gradual deterioration.”

That put the first symptom two months earlier than reported in the Lancet, and a month before the boy received the MMR vaccination. And this was not the only anomaly to catch the father’s eye. What the paper reported as a “behavioural symptom” was noted in the records as a chest infection.

“Please let me know if Andrew W has his doctor’s license revoked,” wrote Mr 11, who is convinced that many vaccines and environmental pollutants may be responsible for childhood brain disorders. “His misrepresentation of my son in his research paper is inexcusable. His motives for this I may never know.”

[Happy Monkey]

This thread can now successfully loop back to post one.

[Clodfobble]

“Please let me know if Andrew W has his doctor’s license revoked,” wrote Mr 11, who is convinced that many vaccines and environmental pollutants may be responsible for childhood brain disorders.

Please clarify... do you consider Mr. 11 to be a credible source on this subject, or not a credible source? Because even while denouncing this particular study, he still believes the opposite of what you do.

[DanaC]

I personally consider him to be a very credible source on the timing of his son's symptoms, but no, as a source for information regarding the problem of vaccines and autism, his reliability would depend on his qualifications. His qualifications as a parent may be top notch, but that doesn't mean he can be viewed as a qualified immunologist, paediatrician, or even doctor.



What i did find interesting was this bit:

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."

I find it interesting that the salient point you have taken from the study, is that the unqualified parent in question believes vaccines may be a factor.

[Undertoad]

I carefully excerpted the article to keep that bit in. I thought it was interesting, and full disclosure. Dana said it better'n I could. The gent in question is an engineer so he is familiar with how to manage data and find anomalies. Going over the rest of the studies is not his job and we don't know whether he has.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I find it interesting that the salient point you have taken from the study, is that the unqualified parent in question believes vaccines may be a factor.

"Autism research monies" have overwhelmingly been funneled into the arena of behavioral therapies, by a vast margin. And of the money that was allotted to vaccine studies, the majority of it was provided by the manufacturers of the vaccines themselves.

The points I have taken from the study--which I have read in detail, many times, including the facts of these new allegations, which are not in fact new at all, they are just being dredged up again because Brian Deer hasn't had an article published in awhile--have very little to do anymore with my beliefs on the subject from a medical standpoint. This was one study done 13 years ago, with questionable methods. The study, and the doctor himself, have been discredited time and again. I don't know anyone who cites this study as a basis for their beliefs anymore. Yet it continues to be vilified because the studies that have come after it are 1.) more scientifically sound, and 2.) more discreet.

The salient point that I am taking from the recent articles (as opposed to the old study itself) is that there are many people out there who are basing their beliefs on the antithesis of one bad study, rather than simply chucking the one bad study and looking at everything that has come since. I'm pointing out that even the father who angrily calls Wakefield a fraud and hopes for the revocation of his medical license (which already happened, almost a year ago) still fundamentally believes in a more up-to-date version of Wakefield's hypothesis, presumably because he has kept up with more recent research.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Going over the rest of the studies is not his job and we don't know whether he has.

It's true, we don't. Who has, I wonder? Certainly none of it was mentioned in this latest media flurry.