The paper further claimed discovery of a new medical “syndrome” of both brain and bowel disease in the children. All but one, it reported in text and tables, had developmental issues plus “chronic enterocolitis” — inflammation of both the large and small intestine. “It’s a moral issue for me,” Wakefield told his audience, calling for MMR to be suspended in favour of single shots for measles, mumps, and rubella. “I can’t support the continued use of these three vaccines, given in combination, until this issue has been resolved.” The dean equivocated, but the professor backed Wakefield. And so was born an intractable controversy as the paper was leveraged to launch a crusade: first against this vaccine, then later another… and another… all the way to SARS-CoV-2.
“It’s not a vaccine at all,” Wakefield would rail against the latter at the height of the Covid pandemic. “It’s actually genetic engineering.” Back in 1998, his ground had been firmer, even based on a mere dozen patients. Many medical insights begin with short case series. Autism: 11 kids in the Baltimore area, for example. Aids: five men in Los Angeles. That Thursday, it seemed possible the Royal Free had got lucky: maybe catching the first snapshot of a hidden epidemic of catastrophic injuries to kids. Massive studies around the world, however, found nothing to confirm this, leaving a whale of a riddle rotting on the beach. If parents of two-thirds of 12 children with developmental issues blamed the triple shot for the sudden onset of autism, why weren’t vaccine victims everywhere? Wakefield doubled down, claiming they were. But, while the medical establishment sought refuge in authority, urging the public to trust experts, not a lone-voice maverick, an old-school Sunday Times investigation, run by me, would pepper revelations across more than the next decade, revealing what this doctor had done.
Our first report splashed in February 2004, almost exactly six years after the press conference. “Revealed: MMR research scandal,” was the front page, igniting a new media firestorm. We had discovered a monstrous conflict of interest that Wakefield kept hidden, then denied. For two years before his “moral issue” surfaced — and before any of the children set foot in the hospital — he had been payrolled by a small-town solicitor named Richard Barr to help lead an attack on MMR. Unlike expert witnesses, who give advice and opinions, the doctor was delegated to arrange the tests, building pressure for a speculative lawsuit.
“I have mentioned to you before,” Barr wrote to Wakefield, six months before the Royal Free event, “the prime objective is to produce unassailable evidence in court so as to convince a court that these vaccines are dangerous.” Barr filed the lawsuit at the Royal Courts of Justice eight months after the breathless press conference. Wakefield claimed fees of £150 an hour (about £254 an hour at late 2022 values), drawn from the government’s legal aid fund. So, as he recruited the children and wrote the paper, he had a financial incentive not only to trigger a client-grabbing furore, but to keep it going for as long as he could.
Those clients poured in — nearly 1,600 families — as journalists were duped to fuel the scare. And by late 2003, when Barr’s lawsuit collapsed, Wakefield had. been handed £435,643 (about £738,000, or nearly US $900,000, at last year’s values), plus expenses, in taxpayers’ money. But as he gazed into the glare of TV lights, his legal deal was only one of his secrets. As he’d made his call for a switch to single vaccines, he forgot to mention that eight months previously he’d filed a confidential claim at the London Patent Office for his own, supposedly safer, single vaccine.
His shot wouldn’t have worked. When I asked experts about it, they laughed. But four days after the Royal Free event, he put it to the medical school that they start a joint company to raise money for this, and other products he’d imagined, which only stood much chance of enticing investors if confidence in MMR was damaged. Yet this doctor wasn’t shy of shady stuff, even hopelessly suing me for what a High Court judge described as “public-relations purposes”. So I carried on digging for years, on-and-off, exposing secrets and lies by the bucket. “If my son really is Patient 11, then the Lancet article is simply an outright fabrication,” complained the father of a California boy brought to London for the tests, after I found the dad and showed him a copy. “I know that paper is not right and fraudulent,” the mother of another boy, from the north of England, emailed me. “I can see that from what was written about my son.”
Confidential medical records (lawfully checked) confirmed the parents’ right to be angry. Some of the kids said to have symptoms days after MMR, actually had them before or up to nine months later. Some were reported with “autism” without this diagnosis. Tests for bowel disease came back normal. None of Wakefield’s data revealed enterocolitis: the chief gastrointestinal symptom was constipation. Parents blaming the shot, moreover, wasn’t even a “finding” — it was a covert qualification to take part. Records showed that not eight, but 11 of the kids’ families named the vaccine at the hospital (the 12th’s later joined them to file a claim in the lawsuit) — a give-away number, sure to provoke questions, if Wakefield hadn’t airbrushed the figures. The poisonous truth was that all but the American family had links with vaccine activists caught up in Barr’s plans, pointing them to Wakefield’s project. And, surprise, legal aid authorities at the time insisted that, for cases to qualify for public funding, alleged symptoms must follow within days.
Wakefield was finished, but he couldn’t say sorry. And when The Sunday Times ran with “MMR doctor fixed data on autism”, he fought back, denying all error. “The notion that any researcher can cook such data in any fashion that can be slipped past the medical community for his personal benefit is patent nonsense,” he argued, in one of countless lengthy rejoinders. He wasn’t alone in not wishing us well. Much of the medical establishment was aggrieved. “I will now defend the heretic Dr Andrew Wakefield,” sneered, for instance, Bad Science author Dr Ben Goldacre. “The media are fingering the wrong man, and they know who should really take the blame: in MMR, journalists and editors have constructed their greatest hoax.”
But tunes changed abruptly in May 2010, after a hearing longer than the trial of OJ Simpson in which the General Medical Council vindicated what we’d published and scrubbed Wakefield from the doctors’ register. The Lancet, which for 12 years defended the paper, retracted it. And, after opposing the GMC proceedings, the British Medical Journal highlighted the irony. “It has taken the diligent scepticism of one man,” the BMJ said in an editorial, “standing outside medicine and science, to show that the paper was in fact an elaborate fraud”.
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Is the author suggesting that Covid vaccines are safe and effective because Wakefield says they’re not (‘after he’d moved on to trashing Covid vaccines’) or that we need to question claims that they are (‘who else is doing what in the hospitals and laboratories that we may one day look to for our lives?’)? His final paragraph doesn’t make it clear to this reader.
Yes I think that was clearly the implication. The statement attributed to Wakefield – that the mRNA vaccines aren’t really vaccines, they are genetic engineering – is factually true. That fact alone doesn’t make them dangerous, but neither does the fact that Wakefield said it make it wrong or support claims that the mRNA vaccines are ‘safe and effective’. But sadly its enough for many people.
Jim R, that’s your take but what’s the author’s? I ask because conflating the two drives (MMR and Covid) within the context of showing up ‘The man who launched the vaccine wars’ as a fraud, the author is in fact drawing into question all the doctors, epidemiologists, vaccinologists, scientists and others critical of the Covid vaccine by bracketing them, through association, as ‘anti-vaxxes’. If not then he should make it clear where he stands on this important point.
One thing that always fascinates me is how often the Physicist Richard Feynman could cut through the bull when it comes to ‘The Science’ – So for example,
““Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion.”
I refused the Covid vaccines for a rational reason once they were available. That I believed I’d had Covid in Nov 2019, well before I’d even heard of it. It took some time for anti-body tests to become available but after my very bad flu in Nov 2019 with lingering cough through December, subsequently I remained amazingly healthy – 2 years without anything, cold, flu etc, until my 2nd bout of Covid (oh yes, I forgot to say, I got on an antibody test trial, and was treated with sceptical amusement when asked about my health history prior to the test. The results of the test left me amused. I had had covid, the antibody profile fitted a no vaccine profile. The only question then had to be, did I get asymptomatic covid after Nov 2019. At 68 years old, I doubt that.) My second bout of Covid 2 years to the week after the first, was nothing, I just slept for a few days.
Once I was proven to have antibody resistance, and it still comfortably high after almost 18 months, I then refused any vaccine as my Virologist child followed ‘The Science’ and was horrified by the PCR testing – as far as they were concerned any PCR test at the iterations claimed ,was effectively fraudulent. It was also clear that no matter what the initial claims, the greatest vaccine trials in history were taking place, and after listening to the explanations of why a number of old people in Norway died after the Pfizer mRNA vaccine I decided Feynman was the man to listen to.
“Health authorities in Norway sought to allay safety concerns raised by the death of some elderly patients after they were vaccinated against COVID-19, saying there was no evidence of a direct link.
It comes after 33 people in the country aged 75 and over died following immunisation, according to the agency’s latest figures. All were already seriously ill, it said.
Initial reports raised alarm as the world looks for early signs of potential side effects from the vaccines. Although doctors say it’s possible that vaccine side effects could aggravate underlying illnesses, they were expecting nursing-home residents to die shortly after being vaccinated because deaths are more common among the frailest and sickest elderly patients.
“Clearly, COVID-19 is far more dangerous to most patients than vaccination,” Steinar Madsen, medical director at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, said, adding that a connection between the vaccine and the deaths was difficult to prove. “We are not alarmed.”
“We can’t say that people die from the vaccine. We can say that it may be coincidental. It is difficult to prove that it’s the vaccine which is the direct cause.”
“It is important to remember that about 45 people die every day in nursing homes in Norway, so it is not a given that this represents any excess mortality or that there is a causal connection,” Camilla Stoltenberg, head of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said at a press conference.
Curiously when it came to dying ‘with’ or ‘of’ Covid, the ‘with’ reasoning never matched the dying ‘due’ as opposed to ‘after’ vaccination reasoning.
When it comes to politics/science, I find a few very simple tests useful.
Any scientist who’s counter argument includes labelling his opponent a “denier” – is almost certainly a fraud.
Anyone attributing “Brexit” support as a reason to discount the views of the supported on anything is likely to be a fraud.
Any use of the words “racist, fascist or appending the ending ‘phobe’ to various word such as homo, trans etc, is equally likely to be a fraud.
Anyone using ‘cis’ in front of the nouns male, man, female, women is a religious bigot or fears being labelled as a ‘phobe’.
My first response to this article is ‘The Scientists’ must be getting worried as everything they sold to us as ‘The Science’ from Lockdown, masks to Vaccines is proving to be increasingly like the sceptics told us at the start. It is looking more likely by the day that the ‘Conspiracy theorists’ had it right after all.
And Lord Jonathan Sumption.KS, KC.from Day 1!
And Lord Jonathan Sumption.KS, KC.from Day 1!
Doctors, scientists and journalists (including Deer) who rely on the pharmaceutical industry for their income cannot be objective about vaccines, mRNA biotechnology or any other pharmaceutical drug they are required to administer/champion. “Disgraced” doctors and scientists like Andrew Wakefield and Denis Rancort can be. It is always essential, when making a choice for yourself, to listen to unbiased voices.
One thing that always fascinates me is how often the Physicist Richard Feynman could cut through the bull when it comes to ‘The Science’ – So for example,
““Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion.”
I refused the Covid vaccines for a rational reason once they were available. That I believed I’d had Covid in Nov 2019, well before I’d even heard of it. It took some time for anti-body tests to become available but after my very bad flu in Nov 2019 with lingering cough through December, subsequently I remained amazingly healthy – 2 years without anything, cold, flu etc, until my 2nd bout of Covid (oh yes, I forgot to say, I got on an antibody test trial, and was treated with sceptical amusement when asked about my health history prior to the test. The results of the test left me amused. I had had covid, the antibody profile fitted a no vaccine profile. The only question then had to be, did I get asymptomatic covid after Nov 2019. At 68 years old, I doubt that.) My second bout of Covid 2 years to the week after the first, was nothing, I just slept for a few days.
Once I was proven to have antibody resistance, and it still comfortably high after almost 18 months, I then refused any vaccine as my Virologist child followed ‘The Science’ and was horrified by the PCR testing – as far as they were concerned any PCR test at the iterations claimed ,was effectively fraudulent. It was also clear that no matter what the initial claims, the greatest vaccine trials in history were taking place, and after listening to the explanations of why a number of old people in Norway died after the Pfizer mRNA vaccine I decided Feynman was the man to listen to.
“Health authorities in Norway sought to allay safety concerns raised by the death of some elderly patients after they were vaccinated against COVID-19, saying there was no evidence of a direct link.
It comes after 33 people in the country aged 75 and over died following immunisation, according to the agency’s latest figures. All were already seriously ill, it said.
Initial reports raised alarm as the world looks for early signs of potential side effects from the vaccines. Although doctors say it’s possible that vaccine side effects could aggravate underlying illnesses, they were expecting nursing-home residents to die shortly after being vaccinated because deaths are more common among the frailest and sickest elderly patients.
“Clearly, COVID-19 is far more dangerous to most patients than vaccination,” Steinar Madsen, medical director at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, said, adding that a connection between the vaccine and the deaths was difficult to prove. “We are not alarmed.”
“We can’t say that people die from the vaccine. We can say that it may be coincidental. It is difficult to prove that it’s the vaccine which is the direct cause.”
“It is important to remember that about 45 people die every day in nursing homes in Norway, so it is not a given that this represents any excess mortality or that there is a causal connection,” Camilla Stoltenberg, head of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said at a press conference.
Curiously when it came to dying ‘with’ or ‘of’ Covid, the ‘with’ reasoning never matched the dying ‘due’ as opposed to ‘after’ vaccination reasoning.
When it comes to politics/science, I find a few very simple tests useful.
Any scientist who’s counter argument includes labelling his opponent a “denier” – is almost certainly a fraud.
Anyone attributing “Brexit” support as a reason to discount the views of the supported on anything is likely to be a fraud.
Any use of the words “racist, fascist or appending the ending ‘phobe’ to various word such as homo, trans etc, is equally likely to be a fraud.
Anyone using ‘cis’ in front of the nouns male, man, female, women is a religious bigot or fears being labelled as a ‘phobe’.
My first response to this article is ‘The Scientists’ must be getting worried as everything they sold to us as ‘The Science’ from Lockdown, masks to Vaccines is proving to be increasingly like the sceptics told us at the start. It is looking more likely by the day that the ‘Conspiracy theorists’ had it right after all.
Doctors, scientists and journalists (including Deer) who rely on the pharmaceutical industry for their income cannot be objective about vaccines, mRNA biotechnology or any other pharmaceutical drug they are required to administer/champion. “Disgraced” doctors and scientists like Andrew Wakefield and Denis Rancort can be. It is always essential, when making a choice for yourself, to listen to unbiased voices.
The statement attributed to Wakefield – that the mRNA vaccines aren’t really vaccines, they are genetic engineering – is factually true.
Nonsense. mRNA cannot alter human DNA.
Hi Kolya Wolf, I’m afraid you might be wrong. Search for a paper published by Markus Aldén et al titled: ‘Intracellular reverse transcription of Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 in vitro in human liver cell line’.
‘Intracellular reverse transcription of Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 in vitro in human liver cell line’.
This is an in vitro study. Sceptical antenna tuned to the max.
For a reasoned critique of this study and an even handed assessment of possible detrimental downstream effects with mRNA vaccines in patients with pre-existing liver problems you would be better off reading :
Comment on Aldén et al. Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line. Curr. Issues Mol. Biol. 2022, 44, 1115–1126https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9164063/
I had a biologist cast a quick eye on that paper. The short conclusion is that it is not fake, and I will not insult the authors by calling them sloppy, but that it leaves far too many stones unturned for the conclusion to be relied on without considerable confirmation elsewhere. A few points:
The most convincing part of the paper was finding DNA corresponding the the RNA in the vaccine. They did not prove that the DNA was incorporated in the genome (rather than free-floating) but with the suspected translation mechanism that is not so big a concern.
The protein doing the incorporation is suggested to be something called LINE1. This is an integral part of the genes in all human cells, and does not come with the vaccine (or with the virus).
LINE1 is thoroughly locked down and disactivated under normal conditions, but is known to be more active under certain conditions, e.g. in cancer. The paper claims to show that LINE1 is activated in their cell culture the presence of mRNA vaccines, but those data are rather less impressive to the eye. They also lack a control, to check whether those lipid droplets stimulate LINE1 when containing a different mRNA, or none at all – it absolutely cannot be the mRNA that does the stimulating, which means that this mechanism is not dependent on this particular vaccine.
Now the cell line that they use for their experiments is a cancerous cell line, which would suggest that LINE1 might be more or more easily activated here than in normal cells.
An interesting sidelight is found in a paper linked to, that purports to show incorporation of viral DNA in cells in COVID patients. As always, you need to compare any potential ill effects of vaccination with the ill effects fo getting the disease. This paper is, however quite controversial, with some people suggesting the results are artefacts of the sequencing method, so again it seems that ‘more research is needed’.
The link that E G-L gives has more and more authoritative comments.
‘Intracellular reverse transcription of Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 in vitro in human liver cell line’.
This is an in vitro study. Sceptical antenna tuned to the max.
For a reasoned critique of this study and an even handed assessment of possible detrimental downstream effects with mRNA vaccines in patients with pre-existing liver problems you would be better off reading :
Comment on Aldén et al. Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line. Curr. Issues Mol. Biol. 2022, 44, 1115–1126https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9164063/
I had a biologist cast a quick eye on that paper. The short conclusion is that it is not fake, and I will not insult the authors by calling them sloppy, but that it leaves far too many stones unturned for the conclusion to be relied on without considerable confirmation elsewhere. A few points:
The most convincing part of the paper was finding DNA corresponding the the RNA in the vaccine. They did not prove that the DNA was incorporated in the genome (rather than free-floating) but with the suspected translation mechanism that is not so big a concern.
The protein doing the incorporation is suggested to be something called LINE1. This is an integral part of the genes in all human cells, and does not come with the vaccine (or with the virus).
LINE1 is thoroughly locked down and disactivated under normal conditions, but is known to be more active under certain conditions, e.g. in cancer. The paper claims to show that LINE1 is activated in their cell culture the presence of mRNA vaccines, but those data are rather less impressive to the eye. They also lack a control, to check whether those lipid droplets stimulate LINE1 when containing a different mRNA, or none at all – it absolutely cannot be the mRNA that does the stimulating, which means that this mechanism is not dependent on this particular vaccine.
Now the cell line that they use for their experiments is a cancerous cell line, which would suggest that LINE1 might be more or more easily activated here than in normal cells.
An interesting sidelight is found in a paper linked to, that purports to show incorporation of viral DNA in cells in COVID patients. As always, you need to compare any potential ill effects of vaccination with the ill effects fo getting the disease. This paper is, however quite controversial, with some people suggesting the results are artefacts of the sequencing method, so again it seems that ‘more research is needed’.
The link that E G-L gives has more and more authoritative comments.
Just in, Kolya Wolf, is this TrialSite News editorial: ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right — up until recently FDA clearly classified mRNA vaccines as Gene Therapy’
The mRNA ‘vaccine’ is designed to infect human cells, override their genetic coding, and force them to start producing the covid spike protein, producing an immune reaction including the immune system killing the corrupted cells. (That’s also how a virus reproduces itself). What do you call reprogramming a human cell if not genetic engineering? It’s very different from traditional vaccines which inject the weakened virus itself into the body. You are repeating the usual MSM / Faucian straw man argument – no one said the mRNA shot changed all the DNA in all of your cells. Just the relatively small number that get effected, all of which will be then killed by the immune system. And its all quite brilliant except for the fact that the vaccine is not carefully targeted to cells that we can afford to lose – it can travel in the blood stream especially if its injected into a blood vessel, and if it should happen to get into your heart or other vulnerable areas and trigger an immune system attack – well bad things would happen. And indeed, bad things did happen just as many predicted.
I thing they are equivocating on the fact that it was genetically engineered. Sounds much scarier the way they put it.
The SEC filings by Moderna call them gene therapy because the FDA classifies them as such.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000168285220000017/mrna-20200630.htm
This is a few years old now and things may have changed but it was certainly considered true at one point.
Hi Kolya Wolf, I’m afraid you might be wrong. Search for a paper published by Markus Aldén et al titled: ‘Intracellular reverse transcription of Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 in vitro in human liver cell line’.
Just in, Kolya Wolf, is this TrialSite News editorial: ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right — up until recently FDA clearly classified mRNA vaccines as Gene Therapy’
The mRNA ‘vaccine’ is designed to infect human cells, override their genetic coding, and force them to start producing the covid spike protein, producing an immune reaction including the immune system killing the corrupted cells. (That’s also how a virus reproduces itself). What do you call reprogramming a human cell if not genetic engineering? It’s very different from traditional vaccines which inject the weakened virus itself into the body. You are repeating the usual MSM / Faucian straw man argument – no one said the mRNA shot changed all the DNA in all of your cells. Just the relatively small number that get effected, all of which will be then killed by the immune system. And its all quite brilliant except for the fact that the vaccine is not carefully targeted to cells that we can afford to lose – it can travel in the blood stream especially if its injected into a blood vessel, and if it should happen to get into your heart or other vulnerable areas and trigger an immune system attack – well bad things would happen. And indeed, bad things did happen just as many predicted.
I thing they are equivocating on the fact that it was genetically engineered. Sounds much scarier the way they put it.
The SEC filings by Moderna call them gene therapy because the FDA classifies them as such.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1682852/000168285220000017/mrna-20200630.htm
This is a few years old now and things may have changed but it was certainly considered true at one point.
Jim R, that’s your take but what’s the author’s? I ask because conflating the two drives (MMR and Covid) within the context of showing up ‘The man who launched the vaccine wars’ as a fraud, the author is in fact drawing into question all the doctors, epidemiologists, vaccinologists, scientists and others critical of the Covid vaccine by bracketing them, through association, as ‘anti-vaxxes’. If not then he should make it clear where he stands on this important point.
The statement attributed to Wakefield – that the mRNA vaccines aren’t really vaccines, they are genetic engineering – is factually true.
Nonsense. mRNA cannot alter human DNA.
This writer is just a Bio-Pharma Industry Shill. Try reading some Bobby Kennedy Jr on vaccines. His book ‘The Real Anthony Fauci’ will tell you the evil that is the pharma industry and is an Amazon best seller
But to see some stories go to his website, Childrenshealthdefence.org.
There is 100% correlation with the INCREDIBLE increase in childhood chronic health issues and the vaccine numbers going from 6 the dozens and dozens which are given today. (which does not prove causation, but….)
The vaccines are implicated in thousands of studies –
try a few topics from the site I mentioned https://childrenshealthdefense.org/?s=mmr+autism&type=defender
Gates and the vaccine industry are evil – (not all vaccines) – but the industry, the same one which gave us ‘The Vax’ are Evil to the very core!
Hi Elliott Bjorn, I do hope not (that he’s a a ‘Bio-Pharma Industry Shill’ ). Apropos, please see my reply to Jim R. Thank you for your reference(s).
Deer worked closely with Medico-Legal Investigations (MLI), which as far as I can tell was entirely funded by the British pharma industry.
Recall that Wakefield’s discovery about how causing microbiome disruption in infants could lead to brain damage (we call some forms of this damage “autism”) threatened the lucrative MMR contract.
Deer was commissioned to write for the Sunday Times, a Murdoch paper, by Paul Nuki. Paul Nuki is the son of Professor George Nuki, who in 1987 sat on the Committee on Safety of Medicines when it licensed the Glaxo company’s Pluserix MMR vaccine (made by Smith Kline & French Laboratories). This was a new name for the vaccine Trivirix, which had been withdrawn in Canada in 1988 because the Urabe measles strain was causing too many adverse events.
The UK officials knew the vaccine was problematic but licensed it anyway (“Vaccine officials knew about MMR risks”, The Telegraph, 2007). The company agreed to supply the vaccine only if the UK government indemnified it from all liability, which the UK government did in secret by using a regional health authority to sign the contract rather than the NHS Procurement Directorate. (Sound familiar? The field of vaccines is one of the most corrupt in existence and it’s been going on for decades.) The full accounting of this scandal that was successfully covered up can be found in Martin Walker’s “The Urabe Farago.”
The UK abruptly pulled Pluserix and Immravax (made by the French company Merieux UK Ltd.) in 1992 when it predictably caused meningitis in UK children—exactly what had happened in Canada. Japan also pulled the vaccine in 1992 because theirs also used the Urabe strain. By 1991, parents were initiating Legal Aid claims due to injury from the vaccine.
The smear campaign against Wakefield moved the attention away from the children who had been damaged by the Urabe strain that should never have been used.
Deer performed a very useful function for the British government and the pharmaceutical industry.
It’s not possible without some sort of court action to learn whether Deer directly accepted pharma money; he certainly obtained some sort of help from them via MLI.
Well said. I used to buy into the whole ‘Wakefield is a fraud’ story, until I took the time to learn the details around it. The case was something of a canary in the coal mine for what we have seen play out over the last few years.
I bought into it at first, too. But he was crucified to warn all other researchers to stay away from implicating vaccines in brain damage or you too will lose everything.
But of course vaccines cause brain damage. They do it to adults regularly and babies’ and infants’ still-developing brains are far more delicate than those of an adult.
I bought into it at first, too. But he was crucified to warn all other researchers to stay away from implicating vaccines in brain damage or you too will lose everything.
But of course vaccines cause brain damage. They do it to adults regularly and babies’ and infants’ still-developing brains are far more delicate than those of an adult.
André Angelantoni, your account and suspicions are deeply concerning because, if true, confirms the fear that the author’s exposé will effectively serve as a bridgehead to attack Covid ‘anti-vaxxes’ while simultaneously handing Big Pharma and regulatory authorities a free pass.
Big Pharma already has a “free pass”.
In a lawsuit brought by a whistleblower in the USA, Pfizer claim they are immune from the lawsuit because their fraud over the trial results was already known by the FDA.
What kind of world is it where a pharma company thinks this is a good idea for a trial defence?
One in which they can operate with impunity having bought the entire federal regulatory structure. (And the same applies in the UK).
Big Pharma already has a “free pass”.
In a lawsuit brought by a whistleblower in the USA, Pfizer claim they are immune from the lawsuit because their fraud over the trial results was already known by the FDA.
What kind of world is it where a pharma company thinks this is a good idea for a trial defence?
One in which they can operate with impunity having bought the entire federal regulatory structure. (And the same applies in the UK).
Regardless of which Nuki was the son of which other Nuki,. it is established that Wakefield tried to discredit a vaccine based on a completely insufficient data set consisting of 12 (!) cherry-picked (!) children. Wakefield is discredited. The rest is whataboutery.
No, that’s not at all correct because you don’t understand the details and I’m quite certain have never read the original paper.
• His report was a case series; the whole point of a case series is to collect patients with similar symptoms because one is putting forward a hypothesis for the common cause. What you are saying is wrong about the paper is exactly the design of this sort of paper. This is a common error people make about the paper because they mistakenly think it had some other purpose, such as establishing cohort risk ratios, or similar. You’re supposed to have a small group of patients with similar symptoms—that’s the whole point of a case series.
• The GMC never charged Wakefield for fraud because there wasn’t sufficient evidence for it. That is Deer who is accusing fraud. But there was no fraud; see my top post comment entitled, “The Thread on Everything Deer Got Wrong and Conveniently Omits.”
I carefully did not use the word ‘fraud’.
I assume we agree that Wakefield tried to discredit the MMR vaccine, quite loudly.
For the rest, it can make sense to have a series of patients that present with certain symptoms, and then look for a common cause. It can also makes sense to have a series of patients that e.g. have all been vaccinated and then look for common (side) effects. But it makes no sense whatsoever to carefully select patients that are known to have autism *and* where the parents claim it happened just after vaccination, and use that to conclude that the two are connected. It would be equivalent to trawling the UK to find a group of red-headed pipefitters, and use it to insinuate that fitting pipes cause you hair to turn red.
Of course it makes sense to do that if the parents all report that their children started to lose language and press their tummies on furniture after vaccination. (Autistic children sometimes lean over furniture on their tummy because their tummies are in pain and pressing on them makes them feel better; most autistic children experience severe GI trouble and many experience explosive diarrhea. This is a clue that their brains are being affected by gut dysbiosis precisely when the brains are delicate and still developing.)
If the common cause was vaccination and the common symptom was GI distress or neurological damage (loss of language), how is one supposed to study this group children? Why isn’t a case series exactly the way one is meant to do it?
He did not claim there was a link. He said there is a correlation that needed more study.
In fact, he even went so far as to write the following:
Most people comment on the paper without having read it, which sounds like the case here given that you are getting key details wrong.
Here is it for your consideration:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673697110960/fulltext
From the OP:
Did he say that, or did he not? He may not have said in so many words in the paper that there was a link, but the implication is quite strong even in the paper. The reaction that the paper got was entirely predictable . For a man who was already cooperating with a lawyer who plans to sue on the basis of these data, do you claim this is a coincidence?
https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452, which you have surely read, claims that 1) it was incorrect that the patients were ‘a consecutive series’ as stated in the paper. Do you deny this? 2) The same reference claims that there were numerous inaccuracies in the data of the article, all going in the direction of suggesting a link between autism and vaccination. Do you deny this?
Finally, the case series. As you know, children get autism and vaccinations in the same years, and just about everybody gets vaccinated. There is bound to be quite a few children who develop autism after vaccination, just by conicidence. If you select specifically those children, as Wakefield did, it is obvious – but meaningless – that your data will show the two phenomena together. Again, if I manage to find twelve red-haired pipefitters in the UK and present them as a case series, is that evidence that pipe-fitting turns your hair red?
Yes, he clearly said at the press conference that the data showed more adverse events in the trivalent shots. Subsequent papers have corroborated that single shots are safer than polyvalent shots and there is a dose-response relationship. After all, one can simply add the individual risks for each vaccine to see that a trivalent shot will be more dangerous than a monovalent shot. Moreover, there will be unwelcome interactions by having three major, simultaneous infections. Simple logic shows that one can expect worse outcomes with polyvalent vaccines.
And recommending away from a trivalent shot was and still is the prudent thing to do given that there was an entirely acceptable alternative. Simply give three single shots. Merck created the trivalent shot for marketing purposes, managed to get exclusive contracts for it and shut out all the other manufacturers from the market for these vaccines. There is no technical reason to give just one trivalent shot. It was a savvy business move and that’s all.
“1) it was incorrect that the patients were ‘a consecutive series’ as stated in the paper. Do you deny this?”
I deny that it represents a problem and so did the High Court on appeal:
Godlee’s interpretation was the panel’s interpretation and the Justice found it was an incorrect interpretation.
People don’t know the full story. They read only what Deer and Godlee wrote and fail to read the rebuttals—in this case by a High Court justice.
“2) The same reference claims that there were numerous inaccuracies in the data of the article, all going in the direction of suggesting a link between autism and vaccination. Do you deny this?”
One has to go through each alleged inaccuracy, as Justice Mitting did, to get to the answer. He found it necessary to quash the sanction and complaint of professional misconduct of Walker-Smith who was the lead clinician of the study and responsible for the results:
I suggest you read Justice Mitting’s response. The GMC’s findings were a mess and Mitting did not uphold the majority of them. In point after point, you will read, “This finding was unjustified,” “its reasoning is inadequate,” and “its findings must also fall.”
Why were there so many alleged discrepancies? In large part, it was because the GMC panel decided that three different studies were the same study.
• the Lancet 12 study
• a study with protocol 172-96, which was never undertaken
• a viral detection study funded by the Legal Aid Board
As a result of not keeping these (intentionally?) clear (which Justice Mitting had to untangle), the Panel deduced the Lancet 12 study had both protocol 172-96 and Legal Aid Board funding, and Wakefield was charged with wrongdoing because the facts didn’t fit. Godlee was similarly confused.
At some point you may realize, as many have, that the GMC determination was set ahead of time: they must find Wakefield and Walker-Smith guilty so as to discredit their study and protect the vaccination program. The panel made an astonishing number of factual errors and incorrect conclusions.
Finally, it’s true that autism appears right around the time of vaccination in many cases. It’s also true that we have other mechanisms for autism that do not involve vaccination.
You further write:
“If you select specifically those children, as Wakefield did, it is obvious – but meaningless – that your data will show the two phenomena together.”
No, it’s not meaningless, that’s the whole point. It’s called studying a susceptible subgroup. They are grouped precisely because they share similar symptoms, including autism and enterocolitis and the symptoms began shortly after vaccination with a live viral vaccine containing a virus with these effects. You are trying to make this paper into something it is not. The purpose of a case series is not to establish prevalence in the population. The purpose of a case series is to gather similar patients and propose a hypothesis.
That is precisely what the paper faithfully did.
For your reference (note where I added emphasis, please):
We are getting into repeating ourselves. So a final answer:
1) My interpretation was the same as that of the GMC – ‘consecutive referrals’ suggest in the average reader that these were routine referrals. If the law – that notoriously has its own particular interpretation of the meaning of words – disagrees, that does not change this fact.
2) The judge’s acquittal of Walker-Smith was based on the point that he could reasonably have believed that the actions taken were justified as beneficial treatment, and that his intent mattered. The criticism of the GMC related to this point. The issue of false data reporting was not addressed by the judge. Nor was the issue of Wakefields’s guilt – and the justification for Walker-Smith was not valid for Wakefield.
Of the three studies, the ‘Lancet 12’ study was a research project without ethics board approval. Bad. Protocol 172-96 had ethical board approval, but was significantly different from what actually was done. At the same time, Wakefield was cited to the Legal Aid Board as capable of providing data that substantiated a claim for damages. If Wakefield was actually carrying out a third, different study I have yet to hear of it.
Wakefield had a massive conflict of interest that he failed to declare, in that he was contracted to find proof of vaccine damages before he even started the project that – lo and behold – could be spun so as to show vaccine damages.
The lancet-12 study was a research project conducted without ethics board approval.
The study did not investigate a ‘susceptible subgroup’. It investigated a group of patients selected (and data manipulated) to have both autism, stomach trouble, and recent vaccination. Of course they found that the patients had post-vaccination autism, since that is how they were selected in the first place. Whatever you call this, you can conclude absolutely nothing from this group of patients – and Wakefield did conclude that vaccination was dangerous – as he was being paid by the law firm to find.
Just for completeness, the MMR vaccine was introduced because having one vaccination instead of three significantly improved the vaccination rate. And the MMR vaccination was not replaced by single vaccines based on Wakefields – unjustified – accusation also because that would have reduced the vaccination rate, and left more children vulnerable to disease and damage. As indeed they were, as a result of Wakefield’s campaign,
Wakefield deliberately and maliciously tried to discredit approved medical procedures, for gain, based on totally inadequate data. Whether he can be found guilty in law or not (and he has *not* been exonerated by anybody) that fact remains.
We are repeating ourselves in part because you aren’t reading closely.
“My interpretation was the same as that of the GMC – ‘consecutive referrals’ suggest in the average reader that these were routine referrals.”
Yes, and the High Court found that your interpretation and the GMC’s interpretation were incorrect. Did you read what Mitting wrote? I included it for your convenience. In fact, the High Court found that many things the GMC determined were incorrect; this was just one of them.
“The issue of false data reporting was not addressed by the judge. Nor was the issue of Wakefields’s guilt – and the justification for Walker-Smith was not valid for Wakefield.”
False data reporting, aka fraud, was not charged by the GMC and if it were true the police would have charged Wakefield, too. Research fraud is prosecuted here in the U.S. and I imagine it’s similar in the UK.
Justice Mitting did not need to address the charge of fraud because there was no charge of fraud—because no fraud occurred. The changes Deer has been saying Wakefield made all these years never happened. It was two sets of grading sheets done by independent graders. If you read his book, you’ll see that he has backed off his previous allegations because people like me have pointed out that he got it wrong.
I have already explained that the alleged competing vaccine could never in a million years replace a population-level, antibody-producing traditional vaccines in other comments on this page. I suggest you search for those comments to understand that Wakefield did not have a competing vaccine.
Moreover, you, too have gotten confused with the studies that were underway. My guess is that you have not read Justice Mitting’s opinion nor have you read Wakefield’s book. Together they disentangle the confusion between the studies that you are making.
Here is the short version: Walker-Smith had blanket ethics approval for the work he did with the children. This was put in place when he arrived at the Royal Free. Given that Mitting determined that the procedures were warranted as part of their treatment (they were getting treated, not just participating in a study), there was no breach of ethics on that charge.
On the charge of misusing funds, the GMC Panel noted that the protocol for the LAB study was very similar to protocol 172-96 and deduced it must actually be the 172-96 study. (See charge 7a.)
Then, as the Panel had decided that the Lancet 12 study was the study described in approval 172-96, they concluded the Lancet 12 study was funded by the LAB.
But that was wrong. The hospital did not make the LAB study money available until 7 months after the last child was investigated and after the paper had been submitted to the Lancet.
So the LAB funding could not have been used for the Lancet 12 study. It was impossible.
Wakefield completed and published a pilot study for the viral detection research in 1999, and its LAB funding was declared on it.
So there was no misuse of funds. There was no breach in ethics. There was no faked histopathology sheets, which Deer seems to have finally dropped as an accusation.
As I mentioned, the GMC Panel got virtually everything wrong.
Finally, to repeat, there was no technical reason to use a trivalent vaccine. You could say there was a public health reason but that’s not technical. Merck initially offered it for marketing reasons and was successful in shutting out its competitors (that’s what happened in the US, at least).
The reason the vaccination rates went down is because the UK government stopped offering single shots a few months after the press conference. This cynical governmental move forced parents to choose between a shot that had legitimate concerns raised about it and no shots at all. It wasn’t Wakefield’s fault that the UK government chose to use coercion with parents. These government workers think they have the right to coerce parents all the time and it’s been like this since the invention of vaccines.
Just look at how they acted with the Covid vaccines. The same thing happened with smallpox, too, until the people fought back after watching too many of their children die from the vaccine.
We are repeating ourselves in part because you aren’t reading closely.
“My interpretation was the same as that of the GMC – ‘consecutive referrals’ suggest in the average reader that these were routine referrals.”
Yes, and the High Court found that your interpretation and the GMC’s interpretation were incorrect. Did you read what Mitting wrote? I included it for your convenience. In fact, the High Court found that many things the GMC determined were incorrect; this was just one of them.
“The issue of false data reporting was not addressed by the judge. Nor was the issue of Wakefields’s guilt – and the justification for Walker-Smith was not valid for Wakefield.”
False data reporting, aka fraud, was not charged by the GMC and if it were true the police would have charged Wakefield, too. Research fraud is prosecuted here in the U.S. and I imagine it’s similar in the UK.
Justice Mitting did not need to address the charge of fraud because there was no charge of fraud—because no fraud occurred. The changes Deer has been saying Wakefield made all these years never happened. It was two sets of grading sheets done by independent graders. If you read his book, you’ll see that he has backed off his previous allegations because people like me have pointed out that he got it wrong.
I have already explained that the alleged competing vaccine could never in a million years replace a population-level, antibody-producing traditional vaccines in other comments on this page. I suggest you search for those comments to understand that Wakefield did not have a competing vaccine.
Moreover, you, too have gotten confused with the studies that were underway. My guess is that you have not read Justice Mitting’s opinion nor have you read Wakefield’s book. Together they disentangle the confusion between the studies that you are making.
Here is the short version: Walker-Smith had blanket ethics approval for the work he did with the children. This was put in place when he arrived at the Royal Free. Given that Mitting determined that the procedures were warranted as part of their treatment (they were getting treated, not just participating in a study), there was no breach of ethics on that charge.
On the charge of misusing funds, the GMC Panel noted that the protocol for the LAB study was very similar to protocol 172-96 and deduced it must actually be the 172-96 study. (See charge 7a.)
Then, as the Panel had decided that the Lancet 12 study was the study described in approval 172-96, they concluded the Lancet 12 study was funded by the LAB.
But that was wrong. The hospital did not make the LAB study money available until 7 months after the last child was investigated and after the paper had been submitted to the Lancet.
So the LAB funding could not have been used for the Lancet 12 study. It was impossible.
Wakefield completed and published a pilot study for the viral detection research in 1999, and its LAB funding was declared on it.
So there was no misuse of funds. There was no breach in ethics. There was no faked histopathology sheets, which Deer seems to have finally dropped as an accusation.
As I mentioned, the GMC Panel got virtually everything wrong.
Finally, to repeat, there was no technical reason to use a trivalent vaccine. You could say there was a public health reason but that’s not technical. Merck initially offered it for marketing reasons and was successful in shutting out its competitors (that’s what happened in the US, at least).
The reason the vaccination rates went down is because the UK government stopped offering single shots a few months after the press conference. This cynical governmental move forced parents to choose between a shot that had legitimate concerns raised about it and no shots at all. It wasn’t Wakefield’s fault that the UK government chose to use coercion with parents. These government workers think they have the right to coerce parents all the time and it’s been like this since the invention of vaccines.
Just look at how they acted with the Covid vaccines. The same thing happened with smallpox, too, until the people fought back after watching too many of their children die from the vaccine.
We are getting into repeating ourselves. So a final answer:
1) My interpretation was the same as that of the GMC – ‘consecutive referrals’ suggest in the average reader that these were routine referrals. If the law – that notoriously has its own particular interpretation of the meaning of words – disagrees, that does not change this fact.
2) The judge’s acquittal of Walker-Smith was based on the point that he could reasonably have believed that the actions taken were justified as beneficial treatment, and that his intent mattered. The criticism of the GMC related to this point. The issue of false data reporting was not addressed by the judge. Nor was the issue of Wakefields’s guilt – and the justification for Walker-Smith was not valid for Wakefield.
Of the three studies, the ‘Lancet 12’ study was a research project without ethics board approval. Bad. Protocol 172-96 had ethical board approval, but was significantly different from what actually was done. At the same time, Wakefield was cited to the Legal Aid Board as capable of providing data that substantiated a claim for damages. If Wakefield was actually carrying out a third, different study I have yet to hear of it.
Wakefield had a massive conflict of interest that he failed to declare, in that he was contracted to find proof of vaccine damages before he even started the project that – lo and behold – could be spun so as to show vaccine damages.
The lancet-12 study was a research project conducted without ethics board approval.
The study did not investigate a ‘susceptible subgroup’. It investigated a group of patients selected (and data manipulated) to have both autism, stomach trouble, and recent vaccination. Of course they found that the patients had post-vaccination autism, since that is how they were selected in the first place. Whatever you call this, you can conclude absolutely nothing from this group of patients – and Wakefield did conclude that vaccination was dangerous – as he was being paid by the law firm to find.
Just for completeness, the MMR vaccine was introduced because having one vaccination instead of three significantly improved the vaccination rate. And the MMR vaccination was not replaced by single vaccines based on Wakefields – unjustified – accusation also because that would have reduced the vaccination rate, and left more children vulnerable to disease and damage. As indeed they were, as a result of Wakefield’s campaign,
Wakefield deliberately and maliciously tried to discredit approved medical procedures, for gain, based on totally inadequate data. Whether he can be found guilty in law or not (and he has *not* been exonerated by anybody) that fact remains.
Yes, he clearly said at the press conference that the data showed more adverse events in the trivalent shots. Subsequent papers have corroborated that single shots are safer than polyvalent shots and there is a dose-response relationship. After all, one can simply add the individual risks for each vaccine to see that a trivalent shot will be more dangerous than a monovalent shot. Moreover, there will be unwelcome interactions by having three major, simultaneous infections. Simple logic shows that one can expect worse outcomes with polyvalent vaccines.
And recommending away from a trivalent shot was and still is the prudent thing to do given that there was an entirely acceptable alternative. Simply give three single shots. Merck created the trivalent shot for marketing purposes, managed to get exclusive contracts for it and shut out all the other manufacturers from the market for these vaccines. There is no technical reason to give just one trivalent shot. It was a savvy business move and that’s all.
“1) it was incorrect that the patients were ‘a consecutive series’ as stated in the paper. Do you deny this?”
I deny that it represents a problem and so did the High Court on appeal:
Godlee’s interpretation was the panel’s interpretation and the Justice found it was an incorrect interpretation.
People don’t know the full story. They read only what Deer and Godlee wrote and fail to read the rebuttals—in this case by a High Court justice.
“2) The same reference claims that there were numerous inaccuracies in the data of the article, all going in the direction of suggesting a link between autism and vaccination. Do you deny this?”
One has to go through each alleged inaccuracy, as Justice Mitting did, to get to the answer. He found it necessary to quash the sanction and complaint of professional misconduct of Walker-Smith who was the lead clinician of the study and responsible for the results:
I suggest you read Justice Mitting’s response. The GMC’s findings were a mess and Mitting did not uphold the majority of them. In point after point, you will read, “This finding was unjustified,” “its reasoning is inadequate,” and “its findings must also fall.”
Why were there so many alleged discrepancies? In large part, it was because the GMC panel decided that three different studies were the same study.
• the Lancet 12 study
• a study with protocol 172-96, which was never undertaken
• a viral detection study funded by the Legal Aid Board
As a result of not keeping these (intentionally?) clear (which Justice Mitting had to untangle), the Panel deduced the Lancet 12 study had both protocol 172-96 and Legal Aid Board funding, and Wakefield was charged with wrongdoing because the facts didn’t fit. Godlee was similarly confused.
At some point you may realize, as many have, that the GMC determination was set ahead of time: they must find Wakefield and Walker-Smith guilty so as to discredit their study and protect the vaccination program. The panel made an astonishing number of factual errors and incorrect conclusions.
Finally, it’s true that autism appears right around the time of vaccination in many cases. It’s also true that we have other mechanisms for autism that do not involve vaccination.
You further write:
“If you select specifically those children, as Wakefield did, it is obvious – but meaningless – that your data will show the two phenomena together.”
No, it’s not meaningless, that’s the whole point. It’s called studying a susceptible subgroup. They are grouped precisely because they share similar symptoms, including autism and enterocolitis and the symptoms began shortly after vaccination with a live viral vaccine containing a virus with these effects. You are trying to make this paper into something it is not. The purpose of a case series is not to establish prevalence in the population. The purpose of a case series is to gather similar patients and propose a hypothesis.
That is precisely what the paper faithfully did.
For your reference (note where I added emphasis, please):
From the OP:
Did he say that, or did he not? He may not have said in so many words in the paper that there was a link, but the implication is quite strong even in the paper. The reaction that the paper got was entirely predictable . For a man who was already cooperating with a lawyer who plans to sue on the basis of these data, do you claim this is a coincidence?
https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452, which you have surely read, claims that 1) it was incorrect that the patients were ‘a consecutive series’ as stated in the paper. Do you deny this? 2) The same reference claims that there were numerous inaccuracies in the data of the article, all going in the direction of suggesting a link between autism and vaccination. Do you deny this?
Finally, the case series. As you know, children get autism and vaccinations in the same years, and just about everybody gets vaccinated. There is bound to be quite a few children who develop autism after vaccination, just by conicidence. If you select specifically those children, as Wakefield did, it is obvious – but meaningless – that your data will show the two phenomena together. Again, if I manage to find twelve red-haired pipefitters in the UK and present them as a case series, is that evidence that pipe-fitting turns your hair red?
Of course it makes sense to do that if the parents all report that their children started to lose language and press their tummies on furniture after vaccination. (Autistic children sometimes lean over furniture on their tummy because their tummies are in pain and pressing on them makes them feel better; most autistic children experience severe GI trouble and many experience explosive diarrhea. This is a clue that their brains are being affected by gut dysbiosis precisely when the brains are delicate and still developing.)
If the common cause was vaccination and the common symptom was GI distress or neurological damage (loss of language), how is one supposed to study this group children? Why isn’t a case series exactly the way one is meant to do it?
He did not claim there was a link. He said there is a correlation that needed more study.
In fact, he even went so far as to write the following:
Most people comment on the paper without having read it, which sounds like the case here given that you are getting key details wrong.
Here is it for your consideration:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673697110960/fulltext
I carefully did not use the word ‘fraud’.
I assume we agree that Wakefield tried to discredit the MMR vaccine, quite loudly.
For the rest, it can make sense to have a series of patients that present with certain symptoms, and then look for a common cause. It can also makes sense to have a series of patients that e.g. have all been vaccinated and then look for common (side) effects. But it makes no sense whatsoever to carefully select patients that are known to have autism *and* where the parents claim it happened just after vaccination, and use that to conclude that the two are connected. It would be equivalent to trawling the UK to find a group of red-headed pipefitters, and use it to insinuate that fitting pipes cause you hair to turn red.
No, that’s not at all correct because you don’t understand the details and I’m quite certain have never read the original paper.
• His report was a case series; the whole point of a case series is to collect patients with similar symptoms because one is putting forward a hypothesis for the common cause. What you are saying is wrong about the paper is exactly the design of this sort of paper. This is a common error people make about the paper because they mistakenly think it had some other purpose, such as establishing cohort risk ratios, or similar. You’re supposed to have a small group of patients with similar symptoms—that’s the whole point of a case series.
• The GMC never charged Wakefield for fraud because there wasn’t sufficient evidence for it. That is Deer who is accusing fraud. But there was no fraud; see my top post comment entitled, “The Thread on Everything Deer Got Wrong and Conveniently Omits.”
Why is it that I learn more from the comments section than from the articles?
There’s something very wrong in our world.
Well said. I used to buy into the whole ‘Wakefield is a fraud’ story, until I took the time to learn the details around it. The case was something of a canary in the coal mine for what we have seen play out over the last few years.
André Angelantoni, your account and suspicions are deeply concerning because, if true, confirms the fear that the author’s exposé will effectively serve as a bridgehead to attack Covid ‘anti-vaxxes’ while simultaneously handing Big Pharma and regulatory authorities a free pass.
Regardless of which Nuki was the son of which other Nuki,. it is established that Wakefield tried to discredit a vaccine based on a completely insufficient data set consisting of 12 (!) cherry-picked (!) children. Wakefield is discredited. The rest is whataboutery.
Why is it that I learn more from the comments section than from the articles?
There’s something very wrong in our world.
It seems a shame that the writer has pursued Dr Wakefield to expose his unethical conduct with such vehemence and dedication and neglected to see the same failings greatly magnified within the pharmaceutical industry.
Whether a shill or seeing Wakefield perhaps as an easy target he appears to have made a bit of an industry from this campaign while being blind to the larger tyarget.
Deer worked closely with Medico-Legal Investigations (MLI), which as far as I can tell was entirely funded by the British pharma industry.
Recall that Wakefield’s discovery about how causing microbiome disruption in infants could lead to brain damage (we call some forms of this damage “autism”) threatened the lucrative MMR contract.
Deer was commissioned to write for the Sunday Times, a Murdoch paper, by Paul Nuki. Paul Nuki is the son of Professor George Nuki, who in 1987 sat on the Committee on Safety of Medicines when it licensed the Glaxo company’s Pluserix MMR vaccine (made by Smith Kline & French Laboratories). This was a new name for the vaccine Trivirix, which had been withdrawn in Canada in 1988 because the Urabe measles strain was causing too many adverse events.
The UK officials knew the vaccine was problematic but licensed it anyway (“Vaccine officials knew about MMR risks”, The Telegraph, 2007). The company agreed to supply the vaccine only if the UK government indemnified it from all liability, which the UK government did in secret by using a regional health authority to sign the contract rather than the NHS Procurement Directorate. (Sound familiar? The field of vaccines is one of the most corrupt in existence and it’s been going on for decades.) The full accounting of this scandal that was successfully covered up can be found in Martin Walker’s “The Urabe Farago.”
The UK abruptly pulled Pluserix and Immravax (made by the French company Merieux UK Ltd.) in 1992 when it predictably caused meningitis in UK children—exactly what had happened in Canada. Japan also pulled the vaccine in 1992 because theirs also used the Urabe strain. By 1991, parents were initiating Legal Aid claims due to injury from the vaccine.
The smear campaign against Wakefield moved the attention away from the children who had been damaged by the Urabe strain that should never have been used.
Deer performed a very useful function for the British government and the pharmaceutical industry.
It’s not possible without some sort of court action to learn whether Deer directly accepted pharma money; he certainly obtained some sort of help from them via MLI.
It seems a shame that the writer has pursued Dr Wakefield to expose his unethical conduct with such vehemence and dedication and neglected to see the same failings greatly magnified within the pharmaceutical industry.
Whether a shill or seeing Wakefield perhaps as an easy target he appears to have made a bit of an industry from this campaign while being blind to the larger tyarget.
Hi Elliott Bjorn, I do hope not (that he’s a a ‘Bio-Pharma Industry Shill’ ). Apropos, please see my reply to Jim R. Thank you for your reference(s).
The final paragraph ? All he is saying is that science is about skepticism, not certainty. What this author does is to trash all vaccine skepticism and this does a huge disservice to the public. Vaccine ? Not a vaccine ? Does this matter ? The point is … if a chemical injected or ingested is designed to MANIPULATE the immune system, there are sure to be unintended consequences IN SOME PEOPLE. We are all the product of our genetics and whether there is genetic engineering happening or some other process, our immune systems are complex and some will be injured, often very seriously. WE ALL HAVE ONE AND NO TWO ARE THE SAME.
So now I will say my piece. I am a highly educated person with medical doctors in the family. I was married to one and vicariously went to medical school with him in my younger days. I also had/have a lot of sick people in my family and some of them have been strange and debilitating illnesses. Many of them autoimmune. Some I attribute to vaccines. I am not an anti vaxxer by any stretch of the imagination but I am a skeptic.
What the article also glaringly fails to express adequately, is the acceptance in the medical community of the reality of vaccine injury. In the US, it comes in the form of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. The injuries must occur soon after the vaccine and this feature is not necessarily logical because we don’t really know how long it takes for the injury to develop. There is simply a cut off date which, arguably, could be quite arbitrary.
Last year I was unlucky enough to be diagnosed with Giant Cell Arteritis and Polymyalgia Rheumatica. It’s an autoimmune disease known to occur in seniors over age 50, but the incidence has climbed steeply in recent years and it is known to be linked to the Influenza Vaccination. The question is …. how soon must the disease be diagnosed to prove causation ? Three days ? Three weeks ? Three months ? Mine was 4 months after my IV and probably will not be a compensated injury even though it is very likely to shorten my life by many years and perhaps cost me my vision in one or both eyes. As a footnote, I do not recall ever getting a flu shot, which is the more casual and euphemistic label for an Influenza Vaccine. I do not get flu shots. I only got one in 2021 because I had a new grandchild and it was a condition my daughter and son-in-law made in order for me to be in their home. They lack the requisite skepticism to truly form an opinion about science. They cleave to their pediatrician who tows the party line.
There has been a proliferation of vaccines over the last few decades. There are several technologies. I try to keep up with the literature. I also know of a video interview of Dr. Bernadine Healy who was head of the CDC before she died of cancer. In the context of autism, she voiced the perfect level of skepticism and was of the opinion that we should be studying the damaged children.
The objective of medicine is to do the most good to the most people. It’s a cost-benefit analysis. It has merit, however, what IF the long term effect of vaccinating the entire population is not truly meeting this objective ?
Sorry for your troubles. The term vaccine is treated as a ‘holy’ umbrella term for radically different technologies.
Each individual ‘vaccine’ is different, even though they may use similar techniques.
However, our latest ‘vaccine’ is entirely new and it must stand or fall on its own merits. No substance can be treated as sacrosanct purely because it’s been called a ‘vaccine’, particularly when the ‘v’ definition is being rewritten before our eyes.
Gayle Rosenthal, thank you. I resonate with much of what you’re sharing and particularly the force majeure imposed by your daughter and son-in-law. With reference to your fears related to autoimmunity consequential to Covid vaccination I refer you to a recent Peter McCullough substack ‘Antinuclear antibody positive pericarditis after mRNA vaccination’.
Sorry for your troubles. The term vaccine is treated as a ‘holy’ umbrella term for radically different technologies.
Each individual ‘vaccine’ is different, even though they may use similar techniques.
However, our latest ‘vaccine’ is entirely new and it must stand or fall on its own merits. No substance can be treated as sacrosanct purely because it’s been called a ‘vaccine’, particularly when the ‘v’ definition is being rewritten before our eyes.
Gayle Rosenthal, thank you. I resonate with much of what you’re sharing and particularly the force majeure imposed by your daughter and son-in-law. With reference to your fears related to autoimmunity consequential to Covid vaccination I refer you to a recent Peter McCullough substack ‘Antinuclear antibody positive pericarditis after mRNA vaccination’.
Yes I think that was clearly the implication. The statement attributed to Wakefield – that the mRNA vaccines aren’t really vaccines, they are genetic engineering – is factually true. That fact alone doesn’t make them dangerous, but neither does the fact that Wakefield said it make it wrong or support claims that the mRNA vaccines are ‘safe and effective’. But sadly its enough for many people.
This writer is just a Bio-Pharma Industry Shill. Try reading some Bobby Kennedy Jr on vaccines. His book ‘The Real Anthony Fauci’ will tell you the evil that is the pharma industry and is an Amazon best seller
But to see some stories go to his website, Childrenshealthdefence.org.
There is 100% correlation with the INCREDIBLE increase in childhood chronic health issues and the vaccine numbers going from 6 the dozens and dozens which are given today. (which does not prove causation, but….)
The vaccines are implicated in thousands of studies –
try a few topics from the site I mentioned https://childrenshealthdefense.org/?s=mmr+autism&type=defender
Gates and the vaccine industry are evil – (not all vaccines) – but the industry, the same one which gave us ‘The Vax’ are Evil to the very core!
The final paragraph ? All he is saying is that science is about skepticism, not certainty. What this author does is to trash all vaccine skepticism and this does a huge disservice to the public. Vaccine ? Not a vaccine ? Does this matter ? The point is … if a chemical injected or ingested is designed to MANIPULATE the immune system, there are sure to be unintended consequences IN SOME PEOPLE. We are all the product of our genetics and whether there is genetic engineering happening or some other process, our immune systems are complex and some will be injured, often very seriously. WE ALL HAVE ONE AND NO TWO ARE THE SAME.
So now I will say my piece. I am a highly educated person with medical doctors in the family. I was married to one and vicariously went to medical school with him in my younger days. I also had/have a lot of sick people in my family and some of them have been strange and debilitating illnesses. Many of them autoimmune. Some I attribute to vaccines. I am not an anti vaxxer by any stretch of the imagination but I am a skeptic.
What the article also glaringly fails to express adequately, is the acceptance in the medical community of the reality of vaccine injury. In the US, it comes in the form of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. The injuries must occur soon after the vaccine and this feature is not necessarily logical because we don’t really know how long it takes for the injury to develop. There is simply a cut off date which, arguably, could be quite arbitrary.
Last year I was unlucky enough to be diagnosed with Giant Cell Arteritis and Polymyalgia Rheumatica. It’s an autoimmune disease known to occur in seniors over age 50, but the incidence has climbed steeply in recent years and it is known to be linked to the Influenza Vaccination. The question is …. how soon must the disease be diagnosed to prove causation ? Three days ? Three weeks ? Three months ? Mine was 4 months after my IV and probably will not be a compensated injury even though it is very likely to shorten my life by many years and perhaps cost me my vision in one or both eyes. As a footnote, I do not recall ever getting a flu shot, which is the more casual and euphemistic label for an Influenza Vaccine. I do not get flu shots. I only got one in 2021 because I had a new grandchild and it was a condition my daughter and son-in-law made in order for me to be in their home. They lack the requisite skepticism to truly form an opinion about science. They cleave to their pediatrician who tows the party line.
There has been a proliferation of vaccines over the last few decades. There are several technologies. I try to keep up with the literature. I also know of a video interview of Dr. Bernadine Healy who was head of the CDC before she died of cancer. In the context of autism, she voiced the perfect level of skepticism and was of the opinion that we should be studying the damaged children.
The objective of medicine is to do the most good to the most people. It’s a cost-benefit analysis. It has merit, however, what IF the long term effect of vaccinating the entire population is not truly meeting this objective ?
Is the author suggesting that Covid vaccines are safe and effective because Wakefield says they’re not (‘after he’d moved on to trashing Covid vaccines’) or that we need to question claims that they are (‘who else is doing what in the hospitals and laboratories that we may one day look to for our lives?’)? His final paragraph doesn’t make it clear to this reader.
Timely article – a nice reminder how science can be corrupted to further the financial and personal interests of people and institutions.
I’ve come to despise the phrase; “follow the science.” It’s always uttered by people with an agenda, or those too simple minded or lazy to do the basic research themselves.
Simple minded, lazy or perhaps just ‘not trained’? ‘Basic research’ is not a matter of common sense, a bit of spare time and a laptop – we seem to think that an hour with a search engine will make up for our almost universal ignorance of statistical methods.
The Lancet, unfortunately, has a track record of being very poor at statistics – the Wakefield paper being shockingly bad, but also the Mehra Hydroxychloroquine paper during Covid. Both were spotted by common sense and a laptop by people who knew data and statistical methods. Check RetractionWatch for how armchair research is improving science by spotting fake papers.
Thank you for sharing the retraction watch reference
The Lancet seems more concerned with promoting “woke” political nonsense these days than quality science. They’ve become a sad joke.
“The Lancet, unfortunately, has a track record of being very poor at statistics – the Wakefield paper being shockingly bad”
There were no statistics in the Lancet paper. The paper was a case series of individuals who exhibited common symptoms.
There was no comparison to the background rate of autism or any other cohort. There was no attempt at creating a risk ratio.
A case series is just the beginning of an investigation as it acts as a sort of “heads up” to other researchers to take note of an interesting correlation; much more science is required to characterize what is described and attempt to provide an estimate of population prevalence.
Many people are simply repeating mistaken characterizations that have been written about the paper, as you are doing here.
“Statistics is the art and science of gathering, analyzing, and making inferences from data”. Here’s the abstract https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9500320/ using numbers to make the inferences. The lack of statistical caveats and cautions and tentativeness is part of what makes it so bad.
You clearly haven’t read the paper and you are not reading what I wrote.
It was a case series and case series do not attempt to establish risk ratios or any other sort of prevalence numbers.
Your comment is very common but it is simply you repeating what you have read elsewhere.
Please show me exactly how the statistics should be have been handled in a paper that had precisely one statistic in it (the mean age of the children)?
As a bonus, this is your opportunity to actually read the paper.
Here is another link to it:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673697110960/fulltext
“Intestinal and behavioural pathologies may have occurred together by chance, reflecting a selection bias in a self-referred group; however, the uniformity of the intestinal pathological changes and the fact that previous studies have found intestinal dysfunction in children with autistic-spectrum disorders, suggests that the connection is real and reflects a unique disease process.”
This is a statistical claim – “suggests the connection is real”. They had 12 hand selected cases, 8 where parents or the child’s doctor (not investigators) linked the case to MMR. Bad sample. Too small. Self-selected. No control. Self-reported events. No attempt at representativeness. All at best anecdotal which may be OK for case histories, but most likely cherry picking. With the presence of later-discovered researcher bias. Tons and tons of caveats needed. Instead we had the researcher off doing a press-tour and calling for the end of MMR – on the basis of 12 – just 12 – self-selecting cases. Bad. Very very bad.
No, you are still not understanding that this is a case series. There are no controls in a case series. You are trying to make this paper into some other type of paper.
Case series are supposed to select the patients. The entire point is to study one patient (then it’s called a case study) or collect a group of them (then it’s called a case series) that has an interesting set of (common) symptoms and put forward a hypothesis. It is not in any way “proof” but the clinician is permitted to speculate on the common cause of the symptoms if the data suggest one.
I suggest that you study the different kinds of papers out there. I’ll start you off:
Download the PDF of the Wakefield paper and look at the upper-left corner of the first page. You will see the small tag “Early Report” in a frame.
If you somehow don’t understand that this is a case series from reading the actual paper, this should tip you off.
If that is how you do a case series, then it is obvious (as Saul D says) that you cannot conclude anything at all from it. It is little better than an anecdote. That does not mean it cannot be useful, as a way to notice rare phenomena and generate food for thought. But the problem is that Wakefield does conclude from it. He concludes that it is not justified to continue with the MMR vaccine and tells the press as much.Now you cannot have it both ways. If that paper is supposed to justify any conclusion, it is totally substandard. If it not supposed to allow you to conclude anything, then Wakefield is irresponsible to base his conclusions on it.
Well, perhaps we’re finally getting somewhere. It seems that you and Saul now understand the purpose of a case series.
As for your opinion that he should not have warned the world about vaccine-induced autism, that’s just your opinion.
In my opinion, Wakefield had an ethical obligation to share what he thought to be true about the danger of the MMR and early brain damage.
As I have explained in other comments, we know a great deal more know about how gut dysbiosis can lead to brain damage. He saw it first. He was framed by the UK Government and Big Pharma to protect their vaccine programs and their profits and since then the problem with vaccine-induced autism has grown into an epidemic that is destroying millions of lives around the planet. The US is producing about 100,000 autistic kids every year currently and about 1/3 of them are non-verbal and many are violent and can’t live at home. The autistic kids have no life, the siblings have no life and the parents absolutely have no life.
The dam will break. The science showing that gut dysbiosis (which vaccines cause) can lead to early brain damage will become common knowledge in due time. This piece is from 2021:
The reality is that people who discover uncomfortable facts first are often crucified because the discovery disturbs the prevailing narrative. They are taken out of the game with trumped-up charges, just as Wakefield was.
Except that he isn’t giving up—because these drugs are causing enormous harm.
Well, perhaps we’re finally getting somewhere. It seems that you and Saul now understand the purpose of a case series.
As for your opinion that he should not have warned the world about vaccine-induced autism, that’s just your opinion.
In my opinion, Wakefield had an ethical obligation to share what he thought to be true about the danger of the MMR and early brain damage.
As I have explained in other comments, we know a great deal more know about how gut dysbiosis can lead to brain damage. He saw it first. He was framed by the UK Government and Big Pharma to protect their vaccine programs and their profits and since then the problem with vaccine-induced autism has grown into an epidemic that is destroying millions of lives around the planet. The US is producing about 100,000 autistic kids every year currently and about 1/3 of them are non-verbal and many are violent and can’t live at home. The autistic kids have no life, the siblings have no life and the parents absolutely have no life.
The dam will break. The science showing that gut dysbiosis (which vaccines cause) can lead to early brain damage will become common knowledge in due time. This piece is from 2021:
The reality is that people who discover uncomfortable facts first are often crucified because the discovery disturbs the prevailing narrative. They are taken out of the game with trumped-up charges, just as Wakefield was.
Except that he isn’t giving up—because these drugs are causing enormous harm.
If that is how you do a case series, then it is obvious (as Saul D says) that you cannot conclude anything at all from it. It is little better than an anecdote. That does not mean it cannot be useful, as a way to notice rare phenomena and generate food for thought. But the problem is that Wakefield does conclude from it. He concludes that it is not justified to continue with the MMR vaccine and tells the press as much.Now you cannot have it both ways. If that paper is supposed to justify any conclusion, it is totally substandard. If it not supposed to allow you to conclude anything, then Wakefield is irresponsible to base his conclusions on it.
No, you are still not understanding that this is a case series. There are no controls in a case series. You are trying to make this paper into some other type of paper.
Case series are supposed to select the patients. The entire point is to study one patient (then it’s called a case study) or collect a group of them (then it’s called a case series) that has an interesting set of (common) symptoms and put forward a hypothesis. It is not in any way “proof” but the clinician is permitted to speculate on the common cause of the symptoms if the data suggest one.
I suggest that you study the different kinds of papers out there. I’ll start you off:
Download the PDF of the Wakefield paper and look at the upper-left corner of the first page. You will see the small tag “Early Report” in a frame.
If you somehow don’t understand that this is a case series from reading the actual paper, this should tip you off.
“Intestinal and behavioural pathologies may have occurred together by chance, reflecting a selection bias in a self-referred group; however, the uniformity of the intestinal pathological changes and the fact that previous studies have found intestinal dysfunction in children with autistic-spectrum disorders, suggests that the connection is real and reflects a unique disease process.”
This is a statistical claim – “suggests the connection is real”. They had 12 hand selected cases, 8 where parents or the child’s doctor (not investigators) linked the case to MMR. Bad sample. Too small. Self-selected. No control. Self-reported events. No attempt at representativeness. All at best anecdotal which may be OK for case histories, but most likely cherry picking. With the presence of later-discovered researcher bias. Tons and tons of caveats needed. Instead we had the researcher off doing a press-tour and calling for the end of MMR – on the basis of 12 – just 12 – self-selecting cases. Bad. Very very bad.
You clearly haven’t read the paper and you are not reading what I wrote.
It was a case series and case series do not attempt to establish risk ratios or any other sort of prevalence numbers.
Your comment is very common but it is simply you repeating what you have read elsewhere.
Please show me exactly how the statistics should be have been handled in a paper that had precisely one statistic in it (the mean age of the children)?
As a bonus, this is your opportunity to actually read the paper.
Here is another link to it:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673697110960/fulltext
“Statistics is the art and science of gathering, analyzing, and making inferences from data”. Here’s the abstract https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9500320/ using numbers to make the inferences. The lack of statistical caveats and cautions and tentativeness is part of what makes it so bad.
Thank you for sharing the retraction watch reference
The Lancet seems more concerned with promoting “woke” political nonsense these days than quality science. They’ve become a sad joke.
“The Lancet, unfortunately, has a track record of being very poor at statistics – the Wakefield paper being shockingly bad”
There were no statistics in the Lancet paper. The paper was a case series of individuals who exhibited common symptoms.
There was no comparison to the background rate of autism or any other cohort. There was no attempt at creating a risk ratio.
A case series is just the beginning of an investigation as it acts as a sort of “heads up” to other researchers to take note of an interesting correlation; much more science is required to characterize what is described and attempt to provide an estimate of population prevalence.
Many people are simply repeating mistaken characterizations that have been written about the paper, as you are doing here.
That’s why most scientific research has to be peer reviewed and confirmed by others. This unfortunately takes time. The current controversy surrounding the treatment of teens who present with gender dysphoria is a good example. It took years for the medical establishment in Europe to doubt and discredit the Dutch protocol and in the U.S., it is taking even longer.
The problem isn’t science it is the gullible press and public that latch on to junk science and won’t let go.
And the peer review process itself can also be a corrupting influence. Much of woke sociological research is essentially idea laundering.
Peer review has its own flaws.
”That’s why most scientific research has to be peer reviewed and confirmed”
Well all research labs and University departments are ultimately funded by the bio-pharma-medical Industry – thus all the active scientists in the field are 100% dependent on research funding and wages by making the industry happy. They say the right thing or their work is Over!
It is 100% Corrupt to its core!
One of the biggest areas of corruption is psychiatry. Is there any other field where a majority of patients seeking treatment do not first receive an MRI and bloodwork to rule out organic illness ?
In addition, autoimmune psychosis is now documented. In Canada assisted suicide of a depressed 22 year old was recently allowed. In California there is a bill pending to allow assisted suicide. Wherever there is socialized medicine, you will see more acceptance of assisted suicide because the care for the terminally and mentally ill is so costly.
Assisted suicide is an indication of an evolved and humane society. Wish fervently it existed in my country.
Assisted suicide is an indication of an evolved and humane society. Wish fervently it existed in my country.
Indeed, and many scientific papers will conclude with the phrase ‘further research required’. In other words, please fund my income for the next few years!
Well, 100% is hyperbole. But there is indeed corruption.
One of the biggest areas of corruption is psychiatry. Is there any other field where a majority of patients seeking treatment do not first receive an MRI and bloodwork to rule out organic illness ?
In addition, autoimmune psychosis is now documented. In Canada assisted suicide of a depressed 22 year old was recently allowed. In California there is a bill pending to allow assisted suicide. Wherever there is socialized medicine, you will see more acceptance of assisted suicide because the care for the terminally and mentally ill is so costly.
Indeed, and many scientific papers will conclude with the phrase ‘further research required’. In other words, please fund my income for the next few years!
Well, 100% is hyperbole. But there is indeed corruption.
That’s true enough. But I also think we should be careful about the ‘citizen scientists’ drenching social media with amateur ‘research’ that gets repeated or reposted without query until sheer force of repetition gives it a spurious sheen of respectability. On either side of the argument. Alas.
And the peer review process itself can also be a corrupting influence. Much of woke sociological research is essentially idea laundering.
Peer review has its own flaws.
”That’s why most scientific research has to be peer reviewed and confirmed”
Well all research labs and University departments are ultimately funded by the bio-pharma-medical Industry – thus all the active scientists in the field are 100% dependent on research funding and wages by making the industry happy. They say the right thing or their work is Over!
It is 100% Corrupt to its core!
That’s true enough. But I also think we should be careful about the ‘citizen scientists’ drenching social media with amateur ‘research’ that gets repeated or reposted without query until sheer force of repetition gives it a spurious sheen of respectability. On either side of the argument. Alas.
The most accomplished and talented are not making it into academia these days due to DEI hiring policies. It’s only going to get worse.
Many of them arent even making it into good colleges now that they’re eliminating merit-based admissions.
Many of them arent even making it into good colleges now that they’re eliminating merit-based admissions.
The problem with your objection here is that it can form the basis for any amount of arguments from authority. The non-expert is still capable of poking holes in complex scientific arguments simply by reference to empirical observation, in much the same way that a graduate in the humanities without a scintilla of technical understanding can nonetheless decide whether an Android or an Iphone is the better choice for themselves, or a street sweeper with no understanding of higher politics can nonetheless make a rational choice about who to vote for in an election.
We see this with the climate change controversy, where sceptics need to know nothing at all about geology, atmospheric physics, oceanography etc in order to point at the historic graph of temperature projections vs the historic graph of temperature observations and assert that the difference is large enough to falsify the claims made about the danger of human CO2 emissions. Those who believe in dangerous climate change can decry the lack of qualifications amongst sceptics all they want, but that cannot make the two graphs compatible.
The Lancet, unfortunately, has a track record of being very poor at statistics – the Wakefield paper being shockingly bad, but also the Mehra Hydroxychloroquine paper during Covid. Both were spotted by common sense and a laptop by people who knew data and statistical methods. Check RetractionWatch for how armchair research is improving science by spotting fake papers.
That’s why most scientific research has to be peer reviewed and confirmed by others. This unfortunately takes time. The current controversy surrounding the treatment of teens who present with gender dysphoria is a good example. It took years for the medical establishment in Europe to doubt and discredit the Dutch protocol and in the U.S., it is taking even longer.
The problem isn’t science it is the gullible press and public that latch on to junk science and won’t let go.
The most accomplished and talented are not making it into academia these days due to DEI hiring policies. It’s only going to get worse.
The problem with your objection here is that it can form the basis for any amount of arguments from authority. The non-expert is still capable of poking holes in complex scientific arguments simply by reference to empirical observation, in much the same way that a graduate in the humanities without a scintilla of technical understanding can nonetheless decide whether an Android or an Iphone is the better choice for themselves, or a street sweeper with no understanding of higher politics can nonetheless make a rational choice about who to vote for in an election.
We see this with the climate change controversy, where sceptics need to know nothing at all about geology, atmospheric physics, oceanography etc in order to point at the historic graph of temperature projections vs the historic graph of temperature observations and assert that the difference is large enough to falsify the claims made about the danger of human CO2 emissions. Those who believe in dangerous climate change can decry the lack of qualifications amongst sceptics all they want, but that cannot make the two graphs compatible.
I highly recommend The Bad Food Bible by Aaron Carrol. It discusses the changes medicine/science has gone through in its dietary recommendations based upon „scientific“ study. Such studies remarkably parallel the topic here. The author includes a simple reminder of what science actually is: a conclusion based upon a quantity of facts (which can always change) or based upon the scientific method of trial & error. He explains how to evaluate the validity of „studies“, and he includes commonsense advice in making personal decisions. If we all just went back to basics…all of us.
What are these “basics” you mention? Surely you’re referring merely to truths you regard as somehow established in ways not necessarily true of more modern discoveries? The problem is, though, that all truths are conditional, there is no special status for any claim.
What are these “basics” you mention? Surely you’re referring merely to truths you regard as somehow established in ways not necessarily true of more modern discoveries? The problem is, though, that all truths are conditional, there is no special status for any claim.
Now here’s somebody who has not appeared to have actually read Wakefield paper. The response to it is virtual proof of the corruption in the industry.
The ONLY way this is a timely article is how it is part of the Pharma Industry trying to divert attention to the Vast injuries its deadly mRNA ”vaccine” is causing.
”Look! A squirrel!”
ps, the link to chronic children’s health issues and the vast number of untested vaccines is virtually proven – read on it – but first realize 99% of all anti vaccine reporting is blocked by google, twitter, youtube, facebook, and the MSM! And WIKI is 100% corrupted on anything involving this issue.
And try to find Der. Bernadine Healy’s interview regarding autism and vaccines while she was head of the CDC. Gone ! Vanished ! Disappeared !
I trust you see the irony in the statement “virtually proven”. Laughable.
And try to find Der. Bernadine Healy’s interview regarding autism and vaccines while she was head of the CDC. Gone ! Vanished ! Disappeared !
I trust you see the irony in the statement “virtually proven”. Laughable.
“Follow the science” is the modern-day equivalent of “have Faith!”
Not only can it be corrupted, it is very often incomplete – not the last word. In 1981 I learned that I was marrying into a family with Fragile X which had just been identified. Today there is much research on this sex-linked inherited mental disability and it is now known that the parents and grandparents can be afflicted with physiological conditions due to permutations. I’m lucky that the answers were definitive in the case of this affliction. A true scientist will say “we don’t know” when that is actually the case.
Simple minded, lazy or perhaps just ‘not trained’? ‘Basic research’ is not a matter of common sense, a bit of spare time and a laptop – we seem to think that an hour with a search engine will make up for our almost universal ignorance of statistical methods.
I highly recommend The Bad Food Bible by Aaron Carrol. It discusses the changes medicine/science has gone through in its dietary recommendations based upon „scientific“ study. Such studies remarkably parallel the topic here. The author includes a simple reminder of what science actually is: a conclusion based upon a quantity of facts (which can always change) or based upon the scientific method of trial & error. He explains how to evaluate the validity of „studies“, and he includes commonsense advice in making personal decisions. If we all just went back to basics…all of us.
Now here’s somebody who has not appeared to have actually read Wakefield paper. The response to it is virtual proof of the corruption in the industry.
The ONLY way this is a timely article is how it is part of the Pharma Industry trying to divert attention to the Vast injuries its deadly mRNA ”vaccine” is causing.
”Look! A squirrel!”
ps, the link to chronic children’s health issues and the vast number of untested vaccines is virtually proven – read on it – but first realize 99% of all anti vaccine reporting is blocked by google, twitter, youtube, facebook, and the MSM! And WIKI is 100% corrupted on anything involving this issue.
“Follow the science” is the modern-day equivalent of “have Faith!”
Not only can it be corrupted, it is very often incomplete – not the last word. In 1981 I learned that I was marrying into a family with Fragile X which had just been identified. Today there is much research on this sex-linked inherited mental disability and it is now known that the parents and grandparents can be afflicted with physiological conditions due to permutations. I’m lucky that the answers were definitive in the case of this affliction. A true scientist will say “we don’t know” when that is actually the case.
Timely article – a nice reminder how science can be corrupted to further the financial and personal interests of people and institutions.
I’ve come to despise the phrase; “follow the science.” It’s always uttered by people with an agenda, or those too simple minded or lazy to do the basic research themselves.
Well I am not sure what this article proves or disproves, but science is based mainly on pharmaceutical intervention to treat symptoms not the root cause, so it most cases it’s failed before it’s started. Big industry is the biggest issue we face. I am sure a lot of drugs do a lot of harm, and some medications do wonders. But there is no independent science, and the push on the latest Vaccines did not to alleviate concerns, to be hounded to take an Unproven and poorly tested drug, which now has been totally discredited by the people who pushed it the most, “it’s not broad, it doesn’t stop transmission, and doesn’t prevent infection” but if you can make billions and the sheeple will follow I suppose it’s fine.
Science is NOT based on pharmaceutical intervention, that is medical treatment. Science is based on formulating testable hypotheses and trying to refute them through rigorous experimentation.
Science used to be that, but now it’s based on identifying the most profitable ventures for lining the pockets of industry and individuals, and retro fitting the ‘science’ to that end, enabled by complicit governments and media, and gullible populations fooled by the likes of Brian Deer and his corrupt boss, Rupert Murdoch.
Yes, and clinical medicine and applied science always lags behind research. It’s natural. But the profit motive can sometimes accelerate the testing and marketing prematurely.
Science used to be that, but now it’s based on identifying the most profitable ventures for lining the pockets of industry and individuals, and retro fitting the ‘science’ to that end, enabled by complicit governments and media, and gullible populations fooled by the likes of Brian Deer and his corrupt boss, Rupert Murdoch.
Yes, and clinical medicine and applied science always lags behind research. It’s natural. But the profit motive can sometimes accelerate the testing and marketing prematurely.