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First he got struck off the medical register in the UK, then his favourite paper was retracted from the Lancet, then the anti-vaxers favourite paper got withdrawn (which they still cite BTW*), then he was quietly removed from his job at Thoughtful House. Following his move to Texas in 2010, the phrase going around the internets was he “lost his career and his country”. Not only that, he also lost all respect from the scientific community and the chance to ever publish in the mainstream scientific literature ever again.

If you reap what you sow, then it appears Wakefield’s chickens have come home to roost – and these are not small chickens either. Imagine Brian Deer in a chicken costume, sitting aloft Wakefield’s tower, watching every move with beady eyes (well that was what I imagined anyway). Brian Deer of course being the “UK investigative journalist who exposed Wakefield’s Lancet work for not just “bad science” but for deliberate fraud. Deer has been on Wakefield’s case for some seven years now and was the first guy to blow the whistle on the now infamous paper which kicked-off the worldwide vaccines-cause-autism scare.

I’ve been following this case for a long time, so I knew the background well, but even I was shocked when I read the three part series published by the BMJ last week.

Deer provides evidence that Wakefield fabricated the clinical data for the 12 kids to make it appear they had suffered neurological disorders soon after they received their MMR. Wakefield had a business plan to set-up a company making kits to detect ulcerative colitis which was projected to make 72.5 million pounds a year. Wakefield received almost $AUD700,000 (plus expenses) from lawyers assembling a class action suit against the manufacturers of the MMR. The same lawyers had paid 50,000 pounds to fund the Lancet study. Wakefield had a patent for a single measles vaccine, which was projected to make him a very wealthy man once he had discredited the triple version.

And none of this was revealed to the journal before he published the paper. This constitutes a huge conflict of interest.

Of course, the reaction from the anti-vaxers has been predictable. Even Wakefield himself referred to Deer as hit-man sent by “them”. On Anderson Cooper in the US, Wakefield claimed it was an effort by the medical community to quash valid research into the safety of vaccines.

Which is interesting. Really interesting.

Because what was so revealing to me – out of all the revelations in the papers from the BMJ – was the fact that Wakefield was offered the chance to reproduce the results from the Lancet paper.

From “How the vaccine crisis was meant to make money“

“…UCL volunteered to support his work. It offered him continuation on the staff, or a year’s paid absence, to test his MMR theories. He was promised help for a study of 150 children (to try to replicate his Lancet claims from just 12) and, in return for withdrawing from the January London conference, he would be given the intellectual property free.

“Good scientific practice,” the provost’s letter stressed, “now demands that you and others seek to confirm or refute robustly, reliably, and above all reproducibly, the possible causal relationships between MMR vaccination and autism/“autistic enterocolitis”/inflammatory bowel disease that you have postulated.”

Then this:

“At the time, Wakefield agreed. Then his employer waited. It prompted, waited longer, and prompted again. “Three months have elapsed,” Llewellyn-Smith wrote to him in March 2000, asking for “a progress report on the study proposed” and “not to make any public statements” in the meantime.

But the study did not happen. The 1998 Lancet research had been a sham. Trying to replicate it with greater numbers would have been hopeless.

So Wakefield’s claims of “trying to quash valid vaccine research” are lies. He was given the opportunity to reproduce his work – he never did. And it all becomes clear why. A complex lie based on 12 children when amplified in 150, just becomes a bigger lie.

But it didn’t stop Wakefield from spiralling further down the rabbit hole. I hoped he might have retreated into a corner somewhere, maybe to slap out some more fictional books with forwards by our favourite Mommy warrior, Jenny McCarthy. But given that the man has an ego the size of a buffet in Vegas, sadly, this has not happened.

Instead, yesterday it was revealed on Twitter by @sthmnookin and @doctorblogs that he’s back stomping the pavements trying to recruit patients for his next favourite woo autism therapy. This time, instead of parents recruited by a law firm, he’s targeting the Somalian population of Minnesota who reportedly have a higher than usual occurrence of autism.

On January 18th it was announced that the CDC, the NIH and Autism Speaks National would begin a study to investigate this anomoly among Somali-Americans in Minneapolis. The Minnesota Department of Health released a report in 2009 confirming higher rates of Somali-American kids participating in special education classes for children with autism in Minneapolis. But it’s still unclear whether these data are real or artificially inflated because Somali parents prefer to enroll their children in school-based programs, as opposed to seeking help from autism specialists in the medical community. You can read more about it here.

So Wakefield, given that he is incapable of understanding he is a danger to children, has jumped on the bandwagon, sticking his fraudulent nose where it doesn’t belong and addressing a group of parents at a local restaurant in an effort to recruit patients for his own study.

This screen cap was published on Twitter by @doctorblogs and retweeted by @sethmnookin

So essentially Wakefield wants to use the Somali kids as more guinea pigs – as he did in his Lancet study – with the unproven and potentially dangerous therapy of hyperbaric chamber treatment for autism. According to the newspaper clipping, many parents have already signed up. And why wouldn’t they. There is no cure for autism, we don’t even know yet what combination of factors cause it. So of course desperate and vulnerable parents are only willing to agree to participate, even if it potentially puts their kids’ health at risk and in the knowledge that Wakefield is a fraud.

How much more harm can Wakefield do? Sadly, it seems a lot.

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Click to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of the Lancet’s investigations.

*when a paper is withdrawn or retracted it can be for a number of reasons, including the work has been published elsewhere, something fundamentally wrong with the data has been detected or the data is deemed to be fraudulent. Only under exceptional circumstances will a paper be retracted or withdrawn. When it happens, it means you can no longer refer to it or “cite” it – it has essentially been scratched from the scientific record (even if it is cached on InfoWarriors).

The Wakefield investigation was the longest in the history of the GMC, with the disciplinary panel sitting for a total of 148 days over a period of 2 and a half years at an estimated cost of one million pounds. The results of the investigation were revealed in a 143 page report on 28th January 2010, and found that Wakefield showed a “callous disregard” for childrens’ suffering and “abused his position of trust.”

The GMC “..determined that Dr Wakefield’s name should be erased from the medical register…”.

The decision follows an investigation into Wakefield’s behaviour surrounding the 1998 publication of a scientific paper in The Lancet journal, linking the triple MMR vaccine with gastrointestinal disorders and autism. Although the study itself did not demonstrate the MMR vaccine caused autism, Dr Wakefield urged caution and advised parents to get single injections against measles, mumps and rubella at a subsequent press conference.

Wakefield’s statements resonated world wide, scaring many parents away from vaccinating their children and firmly cementing the anti-vaccination movement. The resulting drop in vaccine compliance, spurred on by a complicit media, continues to contribute to outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases such as measles, mumps and whooping cough.

Wakefield was found to have brought the medical profession “into disrepute” after he took blood samples for the study from children attending his son’s birthday party in return for 5 pounds “reward”. He later laughed and joked at a conference about the children fainting and vomiting.

(It’s unbelievable that Wakefield would expect this method of collecting samples for a study to be ethical and above board. He is either completely clueless when it comes to the strict procedures instructed by ethics committees or he’s a completely incompetent researcher. Or perhaps his ego got in the way).

In addition Wakefield conducted unnecessary, painful and intrusive diagnostic treatments on children, including colonoscopies and spinal taps, procedures for which he did not have ethics approval to undertake.

In further investigations, Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer revealed that Wakefield did not disclose serious financial conflicts of interest. Deer provided evidence that Wakefield was paid thousands of pounds by lawyers seeking a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Wakefield also had a patent pending on his own single measles vaccine, similar to the one he urged parents to seek out at the press conference following the publishing of the paper.

In 2004, ten of the thirteen authors on the Lancet paper withdrew their names from the publication stating; “We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient. However the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health.”

It took a further six years before the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, retracted the paper, which effectively means it is now scratched from the scientific record. Another Wakefield paper which was accepted for publication in the journal NeuroToxicology was also subsequently withdrawn.  This study attempted to show a link between thimerosal and impaired neurological development and was nick-named “14 monkeys”.

Wakefield relocated to the US in 2005, where he established and was director of the alternative medicine clinic for children with autism spectrum disorders, known as Thoughtful House. The clinic has come under fire for using questionable treatments such a chelation, a scientifically unproven therapy for autism. He was pressured into resigning his position following the GMC findings in January. (Interestingly, the “Founders” tab on their website is broken, and there is no mention of Wakefield anywhere that I can find. Wakefield has been effectively erased from their records).

Despite recent events, the anti-vaccination movement continue to rally around their “poster boy”. Wakefields’ supporters called the findings “unjust”, a “smear campaign” and “a sad day for our children.” Generation Rescue, a zealous anti-vaccination group in the US, (publicly represented by Jenny McCarthy), issued a statement of support following the GMC findings in January;

“Dr. Andrew Wakefield is perhaps this debate’s greatest hero. He’s a doctor who has held onto the truth, unbowed, through pressure that would break most mortals. Dr. Wakefield’s influence in saving other children from the fate that befell so many children is incalculable.”

Comments left on the Age of Autism website were supporting calls for Wakefield to be knighted. How people can support such a fraudulent and discredited man is completely beyond me.

So let’s summarise the chain of events that led to Wakefield getting struck off

• Wakefield was getting paid by lawyers putting together a class action suit against the manufacturers of MMR for 2 years prior to the publication of the Lancet paper.

• He called for parents to seek out a single vaccine for measles – he had a patent on his own single measles virus.

• The PCR data was found to have come from contaminated samples and could not be independently confirmed.

• Pathology results were fabricated

• No conflicts of interest were declared when the paper was submitted.

• He did not have ethics approval for some of the studies on children.

For such a small study (12 children) that did not even examine a vaccines/autism link, it is incredible to think that it had such a large impact on public health. But of course the blame does not solely lie with Wakefield. The media were highly complicit in spreading the fear about the MMR vaccine. And the result of their misinformation was MMR vaccination rates in the UK fell from over 90% to below 80%. And although the anti-vaccine movement  was well and truly active at this stage, it must be acknowledged that this boosted their cause.

Even after 10 of the 12 authors removed their names from the paper in 2004 for “public health” reasons, Brian Deer exposed the conflicts of interest and fraudulent practices, the Lancet retracted the paper completely in 2010, rapidly followed by NeuroToxicology doing the same, the GMC called Wakefield dishonest and irresponsible, he got shafted from the woo-fest that is Thoughtful House, he was stripped of his license, people continue to rally around him.

No respectable medical journals are gonna touch him again. Although he is on the editorial board of the quack-fest that is Medical Veritas, The Journal of Medical Truth, along with other prestigious anti-vaxers such as Veira Shreibner. Actually itr seems quite a shame really. If you search PubMed for AJ Wakefield, you get 15 reviews and 112 other papers. He was a prolific publisher, especially for a clinician, but it matters not anymore.

Recently he sat down to be interviewed by Mercola in a five part series on YouTube.

Although clearly Wakefield knew what was coming – I mean he wrote it in his book, which was published weeks ago, and entitled “Callous disregard”, that he lost his medical license. Harriet Hall has had the stomach to read the book, you can read her blog about it here.

Speaking prior to the GMC hearing on May 24, Wakefield told the BBC he was not responsible for the resurgence in measles. He has also said he categorically denies suggestions that he had acted dishonestly, or against the best interests of children.

He did not attend the GMC hearing in London, rather choosing to appear on the Today Show in New York City where he was interviewed by Matt Lauer. The interview is a clear illustration of him now believing the rheteoric, as he repeatedly insists that his Lancet findings been repeated in five different countries and that there is a link between vaccines and autism. He also tells Lauer the GMC decision is a PR exercise designed to ruin him.

Despite a flurry of research spurred on by Wakefield’s 1998 study, no link between vaccines and autism has been found and Wakefield’s original findings have not been reliably replicated.

Speaking at an anti-vaccine rally in Washington on Wednesday, Wakefield said he plans to set up a virtual university where he will design studies and recruit researchers to carry out the work.

Wakefield’s colleague, Professor Walker Smith, a senior author on the study has also been struck off the UK medical register. The other doctor under investigation, Professor Simon Murch was found not guilty of professional misconduct.

Smith and Wakefield have 28 days to appeal the decision. Wakefield has indicated that he planned to do so.

Earlier this year, he was forced to resign from the US-located autism clinic Thoughtful House, which he established after leaving the UK in 2005. In the longest investigation in the history of the General Medical Council, surrounding his behaviour during research for his notorious “Lancet” paper he was found to be unethical, callous and irresponsible.

Following this, The Lancet made a complete retraction of the paper, six years after the majority of the authors had already disassociated themselves from it in 2004. Another paper, accepted and due to be published in NeuroToxicology, showing that thimerosal caused impaired neurological development in baby macaques, was withdrawn.

These days he can be seen hanging out with the likes of Dr. Joseph Mercola, the anti-vaxer, anti-pharmaceuticals and lover of all things woo.

Yet, because of the publicity at the time (and subsequently) surrounding the Lancet paper, it is often forgotten that what Wakefield and colleagues actually claimed was not MMR causes autism, but that autism was linked to a new form of gut pathology, dubbed “autistic enterocolitis” (essentially ulceritive colitis in autistic children).

But like much of the data in the now retracted paper, it appears the pathology results purporting to demonstrate this are under suspicion. According to a recent feature in the British Medical Journal from investigative journalist, Brian Deer;

“Two years before the paper was published he (Wakefield) was hired by a solicitor to help launch a speculative lawsuit against drug companies that manufactured MMR vaccine. And the instrument of their attack was to find what he called at the time “a new syndrome” of bowel and brain disease caused by vaccines.”

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Notably, Wakefield was also paid in excess of four hundred thousand pounds of legal aid money by the lawyers to find this link. Some pretty hefty vested interests involved there.

But, despite Wakefield being completely disgraced, his believers have clung on even tighter to his findings in the face of consistently damning evidence.

The comments on the piece from Brian Deer already contain claims that other papers have “vindicated” Wakefield’s 1998 study. What they mean is that the findings of ulceritive colitis in autistic children has since been repeated.

(Interestingly, one piece of supporting evidence they are citing is an abstract which was presented at a conference as a poster on Sunday, May 2, 2010. It’s not indicated if it has been published in the conference proceedings).

I haven’t read the studies cited in the comments, which apparently prove Wakefield was right after all, as there are many. But I have no immediate reason to doubt their validity. As a body of work, they may indeed support the hypothesis that ulceritive colitis exists in autistic children.

But why bring in the discredited and retracted (= scratched from the scientific record) Wakefield study into the mix? Why not let the new work stand on it’s own? Particularly when the pathology slides from the Wakefield study are now lost and the conclusions under suspicion.

From Brian Deer:

“The biopsy slides are no longer available, according to one of the paper’s authors, Professor Amar Dhillon, but the GMC obtained all but one of the hospital pathology reports, and for the missing case I obtained the discharge summary. I passed the summary and reports to specialists for their reaction. They concluded that most of the 11 children reported as having non-specific colitis in the Lancet paper had been reported by the Royal Free as having normal pathology.”

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So how was the diagnosis of non-specific colitis obtained in the paper if the pathology slides were normal? Well it’s not entirely clear but it is known that Wakefield apparently wrote them into the paper.

And recall;

“Two years before the paper was published he (Wakefield) was hired by a solicitor to help launch a speculative lawsuit against drug companies that manufactured MMR vaccine. And the instrument of their attack was to find what he called at the time “a new syndrome” of bowel and brain disease caused by vaccines.”

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Even the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, who withdrew the paper, was circumspect about the condition;

“I do believe there was, and remains, validity to the connection between bowel disease and autism, which does need further investigation,” Richard Horton told the BBC in February 2004.

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Wakefield has fallen, hoisted by his own petard. He will not be published in scientific journals again. His latest work is “Callous Disregard“, an account of the GMC enquiry in his own words, with a forward by the poster child of anti-vax, Jenny McCarthy. Any one not wanting to tarnish their reputation or their science, would be advised to stay well away.

The source for the news was an email circulated on the Thoughtful House Yahoo! list which was given legitimacy with comments left by Brian Deer confirming the story:

Yes, I heard this was coming some days ago. Apparently, Jane Johnson, Krigsman and Anissa Ryland are among those behind it.

Who is Jane Johnson?

This comment was left by @lizditz

The co-managing director of Thoughtful House’s board is Jane Johnson of New York, part of the family of the Johnson & Johnson health care products and services company. Johnson (who co-authored Jepson’s book, Changing the Course of Autism) and her husband, Chris, donated $1 million to lay the groundwork for Thoughtful House in 2004.

Ah, so Jane Johnson is apparently an heir to the fortune of Johnson and Johnson, a big pharmaceutical company.

That’s right folks, Thoughtful House was seemingly established with funds connected to a BIG PHARMA.

Oh the irony! Or hypocrisy.

Anyway, the news was also reported in the media today, with stories from the Times Online and The Guardian in the UK. Thoughtful House have yet to issue a statement, but it appears that Wakefield’s name has been removed from the staff list, however, his publications are still listed.

The reaction from the Australian anti-vaxers has been to cling even tighter to their poster boy, as one commentator said of the headline “Disgraced MMR doctor..”;

He is NOT disgraced – they should be ashamed….. ……… ……… . (1)

But as Brian Deer said on Orac’s post;

What he did to autistic children is just shocking. And what he’s been saying to people around him over the last few years is now seen for what it was: beyond belief.

One wonders what will become of Andrew Wakefield now. It’s looking very likely that he will get struck off the medical register in the UK and with no journal editors wanting to touch his tainted research, it looks like his career as a research scientist is over too.

Brian Deer said;

I always wondered what the reaction to the GMC verdict would be. As the Neurotoxicology withdrawal (taking with it a big chunk of Liz Birt’s hard-raised money, which Wakefield still controls) shows, no reputable journal editor will now accept his data.

Some people facetiously suggested he relocate to Ecuador and hook up with Mike Adams

(Oh, that was me).

Meanwhile on the home front, the deadline for the closure of the AVN is rapidly approaching (eight days to go). They seem to be getting more and more rattled at the moment, going into chaotic spins and devising conspiracy theories about the “septics” left right and centre.

Emails emerged today where they accused one male blogger of being a front woman for a drug company that runs a number of bullying blogs attacking anybody who want honest information on vaccination.

Even I was included at one stage, being accused of getting material that showed me in a bad light removed from a website, of which I have nothing to do with. Actually I left a comment on a post there last year, which now cannot be accessed due to a server problem. I know so much about I.T., I barely even know what this means, let alone how to remove material.

Also, in desperation and no doubt encouraged by the approaching deadline, the AVN sent another pledge email today offering a case of wine as an incentive to the next person who pledges $1000 (2). One wonders how far $1000 will get them, when they were asking for “..a benefactor or series of benefactors come forward to establish a fund that would guarantee the AVN’s existence for at least the next 2-3 years”, but who said there was method in their madness.

A colleague decided to utilise the powers of Sidewiki to inform people considering purchasing products from the winery who donated the loot, describing why “I cannot in good conscience buy Rosnay products”.

Take a look at the post if you have Sidewiki activated in your browser. Suffice it to say, Jason hit the nail on the head. Here’s an excerpt;

It has come to my attention that Sam Statham of Rosnay Wines is a financial supporter of a group called the Australian Vaccination Network. Sam’s most recent offering was a case of Rosnay Wines to the first donator of $1000 in the AVN’s most recent cash drive. The offer was made seemingly not as a personal donation, but as direct corporate endorsement.

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The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) is Australia’s largest anti-vaccination organisation. They have been running a campaign of misinformation and fear-mongering since 1994. Many people who now refuse to vaccinate cite the information that they received from the AVN as being partly, or wholly, responsible for their decision not to vaccinate.

I will leave the last word to Brian Deer, who reflected on the downfall of Wakefield on Orac’s post;

Part of me isn’t surprised by this apparent new development. The simple math of Thoughtful House’s board suggests that there will be at least one or two people of calibre and integrity, who know that all the cranksite stuff about a witchhunt, sinister forces and all that shit, are just that: shit. Wakefield has been nailed, absolutely fairly, properly, but belatedly, with no hidden agendas or vested interests.

Apart, that is, from the public interest.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

–
(1) AVN Yahoo!Group message #42270, sent 12.31 am, February 19, 2010.
(2) AVN Yahoo! Group message #42275, sent 5.47 am, February 19, 2010.

This paper was originally published in October 2009 to the acclaim of the anti-vaxers who commented;

“Neurotoxicology, a highly-respected medical journal, deserves great credit for courageously publishing the first phase of this vaccinated monkey study.”

The study, in macaques reported impaired neurological development in young monkeys following vaccination with a thimerosal containing vaccine.

I commented about this paper on Skeptically Speaking recently, citing, amongst other things, the conflicts of interest statement by the authors as a source of concern. It says;

Prior to 2005, CS and AJW acted as paid experts in MMR-related litigation on behalf of the court retained by plaintiff lawyers. LH has a child who is a petitioner in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. For this reason, LH was not involved in any data collection or statistical analyses to preclude the possibility of a perceived conflict of interest.

As a working scientist, I participate in the peer review process. To me, these conflicts of interests are serious enough to enquire of the editor if the paper should be rejected on these grounds alone. I also can’t help but wonder if the reviewers did any background searches for Wakefield. If they had, my suspicions are this paper would never have been published in the first place.

I certainly hope this means that the studies he is about to publish, as referred to by Generation Rescue below, never see the light of day in a peer reviewed, respectable journal.

Whilst Neurotoxicology is indeed a respectable journal, it is albeit, small fry. With an impact factor of 2.409, it is certainly not a big hitter in the journal stakes. By comparison, The Lancet, which last week, retracted Wakefield’s notorious 1998 paper, has an impact factor of 28.

This Neurotoxicology paper is the one described by Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey in a statement following the Lancet retraction. They said;

“There is no question that the publication of the monkey study will lend substantial credibility to the theory that over-vaccination of young children is leading to neurological damage, including autism.”

According to the statement,

Dr. Wakefield and his scientific colleagues are on the brink of publishing their entire study, which followed the monkeys through the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule over a multi-year period. It is our understanding that the difference in outcome for the vaccinated monkeys versus the unvaccinated controls is both stark and devastating.

And

The fallout from the study for vaccine makers and public health officials could be severe. Having denied the possibility of the vaccine-autism connection for so long while profiting immensely from a recent boom in vaccine sales around the world, it’s no surprise that they would seek to repress this important work.

Although the editors of Neurotoxicology do not explain why they withdrew the paper, it seems likely that the GMC findings describing Wakefield as not only being wrong about the science in the Lancet paper, but also acting unethically with respect to using unnecessary and invasive procedures on children, are likely to have influenced their decision. He was also described as “unethical”, “callous” and “dishonest”.

With this third blow to Wakefield’s reputation in a week, the anti-vaxers have finally conceded that he was wrong about vaccine safety, accepted that he had multiple conflicts of interest which he did not declare and disassociated themselves from him.

Just kidding!

Instead they made a BIG FLOW CHART detailing the conspiracy designed to quash “one of the world’s most respected and well-published gastroenterologists.” Click for a high resolution image.

And they’ve also announced that they will republish the Lancet paper in the online quack-fest that is Medical Veritas. As yet, I have not seen any statements from Jen and Jim but, rest assured, it won’t be long before they start screaming conspiracy.

Sigh.

The General Medical Council (GMC) in the UK has handed down their findings on Dr Andrew Wakefield and two colleagues who are credited with catalysing the Measles, Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine scare in 1998.

Thousands of parents opted out of having their children vaccinated following the publishing of a paper in the journal ‘The Lancet’ linking MMR with gastrointestinal disorders and autism.

Wakefield’s findings resonated world wide firmly establishing the anti-vaccination movement and resulting in outbreaks of vaccine preventable disease.

The enquiry sat for 148 days and was estimated to have cost one million pounds. The GMC’s disciplinary panel of experts ruled Dr Wakefield showed a ‘callous disregard’ for children’s suffering and abused his position of trust.

His conduct brought the medical profession ‘into disrepute’ after he took blood samples from youngsters at his son’s birthday party in return for payment. He also acted dishonestly and was misleading and irresponsible in the way he described research later published in The Lancet medical journal. More seriously, he was charged with causing pain to sick children by unnecessary painful, intrusive diagnostic treatments

Dr Wakefield faces being struck off the medical register after the panel decided the allegations against him could amount to serious professional misconduct, which will be decided at a later date.

Although The Lancet study did not demonstrate the MMR vaccine as dangerous, Dr Wakefield warned parents to have single injections against measles, mumps and rubella. The claim has been widely discredited. Subsequent studies into the safety of vaccines have demonstrated no link between vaccination, the mercury based preservative thimerosal and autism.

But the anti-vaccination movement calls the findings “unjust”, a “smear campaign” and “a sad day for our children.” Generation Rescue, a militant anti-vaccination group in the US, issued a statement of support saying;

“Dr. Andrew Wakefield is perhaps this debate’s greatest hero. He’s a doctor who has held onto the truth, unbowed, through pressure that would break most mortals. Dr. Wakefield’s influence in saving other children from the fate that befell so many children is incalculable.”

Already petitions have sprung up in support of the Dr who they call “a man of integrity, courage and proven commitment to children and public health.”

But sadly, the facts surrounding this case do not reflect this belief. Wakefield defends his decision to use children at the birthday party as a control group for his study. He continues to believe it was not unethical.

“I had fully informed parent and child consent. The ethics committee is there to protect NHS patients, and these weren’t NHS patients.”

Investigations by Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer revealed that Wakefield had not revealed serious conflicts of interest when submitting his paper for publication. Deer claims he was paid four hundred thousands pounds by lawyers seeking a link between the vaccine and autism. Further, Wakefield had a patent pending on a single measles vaccine, just like the one he urged parents to seek out the press conference following the publishing of the paper.

In 2004, ten of the twelve authors on the paper withdrew their names from the paper.

“We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient. However the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health.”

The decision as to whether Wakefield is struck off the medical register in the UK is expected to be handed down in the next few months. He currently resides in Texas where he is the director of a alternative medicine clinic, Thoughtful House, which has also been accused of using dubious treatments such a chelation.

“Defiant mummies, whom one pictures at the helm of their 4x4s, trailing clouds of particulates and rubella, declare that they don’t care what anyone thinks about their lifestyle choice. It’s not their fault if their unvaccinated children should chance to infect babies, pregnant women or anyone with a weakened immune system”.

She goes on to say that if they can’t be convinced by science and evidence then “…I can only suggest that vaccine-dodgers have their principles fully tested, but in a really non-authoritarian way” by giving schools the power to rule whether they will accept unvaccinated kids.

“…most schools would probably support the MMR as a condition of enrolment, leaving dodgers to send their children to schools tolerant of the unjabbed, where their diverse immune systems can be challenged in a truly diseased environment. Admittedly, these MMR-free academies may be unfair on the children. But so, when they could have been eradicated, are measles epidemics”.

Hear, hear.

Whilst discussing the Streisand effect, following the threat of legal action from LBC, he showed a screen shot of this little ‘ol blog.

Thanks Ben for putting tipping your hat to the pooh-pooh!

See the full clip on YouTube here. We appear at 02:48 minutes.

“[The comments] do not address the debate about the use of MMR and that is the reason for taking the comments off Jeni’s website,” Common said.

Jeni invited people to join the debate about MMR following her controversial broadcast on January 7 th where she spouted misinformation about MMR, autism and vaccinations in general. However, comments posted disagreeing with her stance, no matter how polite, were quickly removed from her blog.

Some of the comments left on the journalism.co.uk blog make this point.

Andy Says:

February 11th, 2009 at 8:08 pm

Whilst I would not approve of any threatening or abusive comments, the vast majority left on Jeni’s blog were simple and robust criticism of her stance and behaviour. Plus the subsequent behaviour of LBC.

As so many people did take the time to explain quite carefully what was wrong, I have reposted these blogs and comments on my own site. Make your own mind up.

Perhaps Jeni, or her agent Robert common forgot about the internet cache, but Andy from Quackometer.net did not. He has posted all the comments, as they originally appeared for us all to see.

One thing that surprised many people posting on this story, was Jeni’s somewhat hypocritical cry that these comments were abusive personal attacks. This is a bit rich when you consider she herself yelled over the top of Yasmin, now identified as an NHS nurse, then later referred to her as “vicious”.

The Biologista Says:

February 11th, 2009 at 9:26 pm

1. Jeni herself described at least one of her pro-MMR callers “vicious” and has been very dismissive of all of her critics. Regardless of the evidence they produced or how mannerly they were, their concerns were regarded as “sarcasm”.

David Jones Says:

February 11th, 2009 at 9:42 pm

Most of the messages have been saved and are on the Internet for all to see. None were personally abusive. On the other hand, Barnett described a perfectly reasonable and concerned nurse who called into the show as ‘vicious’, which is simply untrue. The transcripts are available, read them for yourself, see who’s indulging in personal abuse.

This is precisely the point Jeni. You can put all the spin on it you like but the facts remain. The audio, the transcript and the blog comments as they originally appeared are available for us all to see.

In the meantime, Ben has issued a personal plea on his blog to not send abusive emails to Jeni following a phone call from the programme director of LBC.

As the saying goes, if you give people enough rope….

Reports drifting around the internet say she has now deleted derogatory comments from her blog. Also the entire debacle has recently caught the attention of Mr Stephen Fry who twittered about the fuss this morning.

IMHO this chap needs out support http://tinyurl.com/btokam Vaccination scares are SO bloody irresponsible, espesh this sort. Kids have died.

These comments also from Stephen appear on Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science site.

The fatuity of the Jeni Barnett woman’s manner – her blend of self-righteousness and stupidity, her simply quite staggering inability to grasp, pursue or appreciate a sequence of logical steps – all these are signature characteristics of Britain these days. The lamentable truth is that most of the population wouldn’t really understand why we get so angry at this assault on reason, logic and sense. But we have to keep hammering away at these people and their superstitious inanities. We have to. Well done you and well done all you supporting. I’ve tweeted this site to my followers. I hope they all do their best to support you. Publish and be damned. We’ll fight them and fight them and fight them in the name of empricism, reason, double blind random testing and all that matters.
Love

Stephen xxx

Plus a new article appears in the Times today.

I don’t have time to blog this properly now, but fortunately my fellow-bloggers already have.

Please visit Podblack to see the most recent happenings, Quackometer and Holford watch for a concise summary of everything that has happened so far.