I must admit that I never saw it coming. At least, I never saw it coming this fast and this dramatically. After all, this is a saga that has been going on for twelve solid years now, and it’s an investigation that has been going on at least since 2004. I’m referring, of course, to that (possibly former) hero of the anti-vaccine movement, the man who is arguably the most responsible for suffering and death due to the resurgence of measles in the U.K. because of his role in frightening parents about the MMR vaccine.
I’m referring to the fall of Andrew Wakefield
Wakefield has shown an incredible ability to avoid the consequences of his actions, so much so that, as recently as the end of 2009, what has happened to him over the last month or so would have been almost unthinkable to me. First, the British General Medical Council (GMC) found him guilty of several counts of egregious research misconduct, referring to him as “irresponsible and dishonest.” Then, a mere five days later, the editors of The Lancet decided to retract Wakefield’s infamous 1998 Lancet paper. True, it’s something that the Lancet editors should have done back in 2004 when Brian Deer first publicized the evidence of research misconduct that existed against Wakefield, but better late than never. Then, about a week later it was noticed that Wakefield’s sole remaining claim to the appearance of scientific legitimacy–just the appearance, mind you–had been withdrawn from the scientific literature, disappearing from the website of NeuroToxicology, whose hapless, clueless, and naive editors and peer reviewers had somehow let an execrably bad study see print, at least online. Instantly, the anti-vaccine movement erupted into a frenzy of conspiracy-mongering, the most hilarious of which was Ginger Taylor‘s mapping out of the various parts of the conspiracy to “suppress” Andrew Wakefield’s “brave maverick science.”
Wakefield’s fall was completed when last week the board of directors, led by Johnson & Johnson heiress Jane Johnson, having had enough of Wakefield, apparently unceremoniously booted him from the staff of Thoughtful House. (Of course, the irony that Thoughtful House has as one of its biggest supporters and a member of its board of directors the heiress of a pharmaceutical company family tickles me to no end. Clearly, Andrew Wakefield is a minion of big pharma in addition to his having been a minion of trial lawyers.) Last Wednesday night a cryptic message appeared on the Thoughtful House Yahoo! discussion group announcing his departure. That was followed by the disappearance of his name from the staff list at Thoughtful House. It wasn’t until Friday that the mainstream media was reporting that Wakefield had resigned from Thoughtful House.
Naturally, the ever-intrepid Brian Deer has more:
The following day [after The Lancet retracted Wakefield’s 1998 paper], Dr Joan Marie Cranmer, editor of the specialist journal Neurotoxicology, told her New York publisher that she would withdraw a new Wakefield paper, already released online, which also claimed to incriminate vaccines.
It’s understood that Cranmer “took another look at the paper” in the light of a GMC finding of research dishonesty, but a spokesman for the publisher, Elsevier, declined to comment. “It would be inappropriate to go into a lot of detail,” he said.
The Neurotoxicology decision is believed to have been the last straw at Thoughtful House, a centre founded in 2005 by the rich parents of developmentally-challenged children. The clinic was set up to enable Wakefield to continue activities which in October 2001 saw him fired from a London research position, and which eventually led to the GMC charges.
This is what I and others had suspected all along, mainly that the editor of NeuroToxicology, seeing the full depth and breadth of Wakefield’s scientific misconduct and unethical human subjects research, decided that she had better cut her losses and withdraw the paper, which had been accepted a few months ago and had been available online. This was the paper to which I had referred as “monkey business in autism research” and Prometheus had referred as a “made for court study.” It was a bad study in every way. Not only poorly designed, it was unethical as hell, too, making me wonder where the heck the University of Pittsburgh’s IACUC was when this study was approved. Soon after, it was announced that Wakefield’s partner in woo Dr. Arthur Krigsman was also leaving Thoughtful House. Three woo-meisters started Thoughtful House; only one woo-meister was left standing after the purge.
The more interesting revelation of Brian Deer’s work, however, is that there were a bunch of big money donors who had been backing Wakefield and plotting a comeback by helping to hire Max Clifford, a world-renowned publicist:
Wakefield has made similar unsubstantiated allegations, and it’s understood that Stott was intended to be a conduit through which American anti-vaccine campaigners would channel money to fund a public relations initiative for Wakefield, masterminded by Max Clifford Associates.
Two names were given to us, by a reliable contact, as likely sources of money. These were J B Handley of Generation Rescue, a group fronted by actress Jenny McCarthy, and Mark Blaxill, of the group Safeminds, which has claimed that autism is nothing but mercury poisoning.
These names were put to Ms Clifford [Max Clifford’s daughter], who said that she didn’t recognise Handley’s, but she appeared to take the bait over Blaxill. “Right, Mark. Okay. Mark is…” But then she paused to ask: “Brian, what’s your background?”
This information appears consistent with messages that have appeared on David Kirby’s EOH discussion list by Lenny Schafer, who stated that “various advocates are coming together around this and rest assured that Andy Wakefield will be adequately supported by our community.” The message in question was posted on Friday, less than two days after the original cryptic message on the Yahoo! Thoughtful House discussion group announced to the faithful that Wakefield was gone.
One thing that had puzzled me after Wakefield’s resignation cum sacking is this. The anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism had grown very, very silent about Wakefield. Nearly four whole days passed between Wakefield’s removal with nary a peep. Indeed, I had been seriously tempted to tweak J.B. Handley by e-mailing him a couple of my posts about Wakefield’s departure and ask him why AoA hadn’t said anything yet. In fact, come to think of it, after JB’s infamous “show me the monkeys” post, there had been nary a peep about the withdrawal of Wakefield’s NeuroToxicology paper, either, although Mark Blaxill did somehow manage to get his nonesense published in USA TODAY. Silence about Wakefield’s resignation reigned.
Until yesterday.
First, Martin Walker quoted Brian Deer commenting on my blog, without even the courtesy of a back link, after which he launched into yet another one of his beyond Orac-ian length rants against the GMC. Far more interestingly, there was this post, ostensibly an interview with Andrew Wakefield by Dan “find me them autistic Amish” Olmsted that was far more like a press release than an interview entitled Wakefield Moving into New Leadership Role in Autism Community, Leaving Thoughtful House. They must really be desperate for some sort of positive spin to try to put on this move, if this is the best they can come up with:
Dr. Andrew Wakefield announced today his intention to move on to a new phase of leadership in the autism community as he also prepares a more aggressive defense of his scientific accomplishments in the wake of a ruling from the U.K.’s General Medical Council (GMC).
“Announced today”? The resignation/firing took place nearly four days and mainstream news outlets started noticing two days before Wakefield’s “announcement.” The best word that comes to mind to describe such an announcement is “anticlimactic” at best and nakedly self-serving at worst. Of course “nakedly self-serving” is one of best descriptions of everything that Andrew Wakefield does, and this is no exception, in particular:
“The most exciting part of it has been the opening up of an entirely new sort of opportunity that will allow me to continue my work on behalf of autism families.” Wakefield said he would provide more specifics on the nature of that opportunity soon. “In addition, I will now speak publicly to refute the findings that have been made against me. I know my necessary silence on these issues has troubled many parents in both the U.K. and the U.S. But I’m ready now to get back on the front foot and publicly contest the false accusations that have been made against me, my colleagues, and indirectly The Lancet children. It’s been long overdue.”
Autism pseudoscientists and quacks are nothing if not, as James Randi would put it, unsinkable rubber ducks, and Wakefield is an autism woo-meister par excellance. Wakefield is down, but I wouldn’t count him out–unfortunately. It wouldn’t surprise me if he slithers back in another role. Nor do I feel sorry for him. After all, his trial-lawyer funded, incompetent, and quite likely scientifically fraudulent 1998 Lancet paper was the study that launched the most recent (an possibly most virulent) iteration of the anti-vaccine movement, led to dramatically decreased MMR vaccination rates in the U.K., and launched a thousand quacks in the form of the “autism biomed” movement, which has in essence made autistic children the victims of unregulated and sometimes dangerous experimentation all in the name of trying to “cure” them of their autism. The price autistic children have paid for Wakefield’s pseudoscience is horrific enough, but the potential price that thousands of children, both autistic and neurotypical, are paying and will likely continue to pay in terms of suffering from vaccine-preventable diseases, will probably be even worse.
As much as I detest Andrew Wakefield, I will admit, however, that I am quite curious about the form that this “new opportunity” to which he alluded will take. In fact, we can all make a game of it, “Guess where Andy will end up?” My top three guesses would be:
- Medical director or chief scientist of Generation Rescue
- Medical director or chief scientist at SafeMinds
- Medical director at a quack clinic in Ecuador, Costa Rica, or Tijuana
I lay odds on #1 or #2. #3 would clearly only be after Wakefield disgraces himself again, to the point that even Generation Rescue or SafeMinds can’t take it. True, that would be very, very hard, given J.B. Handley’s antics and the flaming stupid that Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, and Mark Blaxill regularly lay down, but I have faith in Andy, faith produced by his long history of incompetent, ideology-driven, and unethical science. I know he can do it again. In fact, I fear it, because, as amusing as it is to rip on Wakefield and the cluelessness of his remaining supporters, when Wakefield disgraces himself, it is children who suffer.
112 replies on “Andrew Wakefield: Destined for even more disrepute”
I’m surprised how fast it happened, too. And I’m glad the media coverage Got It Right and didn’t try to be “fair and balanced” by interviewing anti-vax proponents. How long will it be until the average mom, who isn’t already an anti-vaxxer but has “heard about vaccines causing autism,” hears that this is officially dead? It makes me angry that my biology colleagues believe in this rot.
Every fad quackery has True Believers who won’t move on, but if they can’t recruit new believers, their effect will be diminished. I hope that vaccination rates recover soon, and that research can move on to something constructive. There is very little research to validate the many flavors of behavioral/occupational therapy for autistics, so even if parents want to do the right thing, it’s hard to know which things are right. There’s a fair amount of woo that doesn’t involve feeding kids industrial chelators, pharmaceutical castrators, etc.
However, there’s one thing we know is wrong: treating a child like damaged goods. If parents know autism isn’t “vaccine injury” and stop trying dangerous quackery to “get their darling child back,” this is a good start.
I think it will take him a little time to get used to his new role as a freelance charlatan.
Trying to hire Max Clifford is a sign of how desperate the Andy Cheerleaders are – most of his clients are reality-TV show contestants and other Z-list “slebs”. And he’s the go-to guy if you want to sell your wedding photos to Hello! for a couple of mill.
But even Clifford has some standards (he turned down Michael Jackson, for instance) and a lifetime in PR has given him a nose for potential PR disasters. If he’s turned down Wakefield, then St Andy really does smell.
Wakefield spake:
My emphasis. WTF? Nobody has ever accused the children in the Lancet study of anything. This is either delusional, or a way to desperately shoe-horn in of a cry of “Think of the children!”
Anybody who read Olmsted’s “exclusive interview” with Wakefield, which reveals that, well, what we already knew, might wonder if the questions were agreed in advance.
Definitely. In fact, Brian Deer also put in for an interview with the doctor, and I got a sneak preview of what he wanted to raise:
1. How many mothers of autistic children have you had sex with? I’m sure I don’t know about all of them.
2. Do you look forward to your new role as a freelance charlatan?
3. You were fired from Thoughtful House by Jane Johnson, director of Defeat Autism Now! Do you say that she is part of a sinister drug industry plot against you, or what?
4. Did you make them pay you more than $500,000 to get shot of you?
5. Were you escorted from the premises by security, or did they just change the locks?
6. Are you concerned about the immigration and naturalization service eyeballing your status?
7. Do you plan to return your fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists, or will you wait for them to ask for it back?
8. When parents say that you helped their children, what did you do and has it been reported to the police?
9. Is any of Liz Birt’s money left, or did you spend it all?
10. Do you have any plans to own property within the jurisdiction of the English court?
As I understand it, the interview wasn’t granted.
I’d like to hope for option #4, prison, to be justified in some way.
I mentioned a few days/weeks ago that NONE of this matters long term. I have said that for a while now. My comment here was days before this development with Thoughful House. I had no idea that this would come down the road so quickly… but of course, it isn’t at all surprising considering the smear campaign that was waged against Dr. Wakefield. So, let’s get back to what I previously discussed here.
Reality is … The controversy does not go away after the happenings with Dr. Wakefield (losing the case or his departure from Thoughful House). Do you think that suddenly parents of mmr victims are now going to say… “Oh, I get it… Dr, Wakefield lost the case, he was wrong, there really are no issues with the mmr”. LOL! Of course not. That’s insane. Do you think that in the UK parents are going to suddenly say… “I’m so happy that the GMC figured that one out. Phew”. Yeah, right… Do you think that your mmr compliance rates are going to skyrocket again? Please. Spare me. If the UK is anything like the US, people know that these decisions are political and really have absolutely NOTHING to do with the truth. Nothing. So, go ahead, rejoice. It’s all good. Continue your whinefest about how awful little old Wakefield is and how cute it is that he is doing this, that and the other thing now. Whatever. The fact of the matter is that this changes absolutely nothing (other than on a personal level for Dr. Wakefield). Truth marches on. Carry on. I am ‘telescoping’ my way out of this thread again….. (Big kuddos to Novella for coming up with that hilarious idea of telescoping… It’s given me many laughs…).
I think you are using your own definition of “truth”
“I think you are using your own definition of “truth”‘
(Telscoping back in for the moment).
Right. Sorry, the Wackosphere doesn’t own the right to use and abuse that word – as much as you would love to be able to…
to paraphrase: “What? You expect us to change our minds when presented with overwhelming evidence? Hogwash! What do you think we are, scientists? Now let me trot out a sarcastic dig at a respected doctor that only reveals my ignorance of common neurological/psychological vocabulary (despite this being explained to me several times)! Hooray the truth!”
It’s marvelous how loudly some antivaxers are declaring that Wakefield doesn’t matter at all to them – even as they scurry around behind the scenes trying to rehabilitate him.
His disgrace, and antivaxers’ refusal to acknowledge the reasons for it are a major blow to their credibility that they can’t evade.
Wakefield has shown an incredible ability to avoid the consequences of his actions…
And now he seems to have lost it all. What a strange change of condition: doesn’t it merit study in its own right?
What if this troubling loss of immunity is contagious? (That would explain Clifford’s disinclination to join his efforts.)
If at all possible, Wakefield should be packed off to cohabit with the Bush & Cheney clans, just in case!
BwAHAHAHAHA!
Aw damn, I thought I left my bag of Troll-Chow⢠at home.
“…doesn’t own the right to use and abuse that word…”
Aaugh, I’ve got a hernia now! We forgot to buy the rights to “Truthiness”! Steven Colbert would so disapprove! Whatever will we do?! Alas, the Wackothphere has all the same rights as the WooCube, since neither exists of its own accord. Although… now that Corporations have been granted some people-rights, maybe incoherent expressions of non-extant advocacy groups will as well. I’m sure we wouldn’t really care to know how you choose to define, test, verify, and refute Truthâ¢. Where-oh-where could we possibly have gotten it wrong? Maybe we just weren’t observant enough. Must have been Lancet who was on-the-ball the whole time. Oh, and the Lancet Children, of course. Mustn’t forget them… and I bet there wasn’t even a twinge of shame just now, was there?
Pull that “telescope” out of your ass and clean the crap off it, Wacko.
The Woo is Dead. Long Live the Woo.
I hope that’s not what happened. Just because he’s been shown to be a fraud once doesn’t mean that all his future papers should be yanked. I hope the editor, “seeing the full depth…,” contacted Wakefield and asked him the questions he should have been asked up front. And then withdrew the paper, after seeing inadequate answers (or no answers). Perhaps the questions and answers will someday be made public.
@7 Novella didn’t come up with the term wackjob
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16686113?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=9
“the man who is arguably the most responsible for suffering and death due to the resurgence of measles in the U.K. because of his role in frightening parents about the MMR vaccine.”
You sure it doesnt have anything to do with this? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3336455/Secret-report-reveals-18-child-deaths-following-vaccinations.html
Too bad you ar complete idiot who wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped you in the face.
“You sure it doesnt have anything to do with this? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3336455/Secret-report-reveals-18-child-deaths-following-vaccinations.html“
Ben Goldacre was right. Not only has the British press been a major enabler of Wakefield, they’re still pursuing sensationalism at the expense of science and good medicine.
Sorry, but vaccinations are not “linked” to SIDS cases, or to heart attacks in infants. This sounds very much like the attempts of antivaxers to pull reports out of the VAERS database in this country and claim that temporal associations of vaccinations with all sorts of health problems are “proof” that the vaccines caused them.
Whatever sells papers is acceptable, apparently.
@15 I couldn’t care less… the way that he uses it in describing parental concerns re: autism… is simply hilarious. I love it! He should telescope himself back into reality.
@10
“to paraphrase: “What? You expect us to change our minds when presented with overwhelming evidence? Hogwash”!
There is no overwhelming evidence, moron.
Wacko,
So truth (you don’t like) = smear? Interesting.
And, yes, there really is no case against the mmr. If the parents had an ounce of intelligence or honor they’d see and acknowledge that. Oh well.
Shorter Wacko/Medicine Man…
“Evidence Schmevidence! We don’t need no steenking evidence, what we’re working with is a feeling and many strong beliefs! That’s all we need! Oh and also… Lies! Paralyzed Redskin Cheerleader, anyone?”
Har-har.
Whacko,
Where is the scientific evidence that MMR causes autism?
The evidence is that Wakefield put children at risk, very possibly for personal gain. The evidence is that MMR isn’t a factor in autism, but IS a factor in preventing mumps, measles and rubella. The evidence is that Dr. Novella didn’t invent “telescoping” – evidence found here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16686113?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=9.
Whacko – are you so invested in this argument that you will put children at risk just so you don’t have to admit you’re wrong?
Whacko:
Evidence that there are “mmr victims,” please. Real evidence, not links to yellow journalism articles.
I believe that being published is the standard treatment for fraud in such cases. Getting it wrong with bad data or interpretation is accepted as part of the process; we can all fool ourselves. Deliberately falsifying data is outright lying and an attempt to fool colleagues.
Whysmile and RickK, just a note that the PubMed links work if you just use the part before the question mark. Example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16686113
I should also note that Amazon links work if you remove anything starting after the “/ref”. Example:
http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Science-Paperback-New-Goldacre/dp/B002BIMNDQ
@18
Of course, that article fails to mention, out of the 8 deaths, how many people were vaccinated in total.
8 out of 1000 is a lot more than 8 out of 8 million
One of my “spies” informs me that there hasn’t been any discussion about vaccines lately on Imus’ radio show(which is *supposed* to be about sports,but has been known to turn “woo”).I think that those who have “made a name for themselves”(albeit a notorious name)are re-grouping,i.e. looking for *something else* in vaccines to blame(*a la* Janine Roberts- remember, there has been opposition to vaccines since their inception on *some* grounds,however shakey)or *another* topic with which they can scare people.Since many of the “true believers” rant,rave, and rag on about the intrusion of the “unnatural” into the pristine sphere of their purified life, here are some tried-and-true fear-mongering issues (and potential ideas for product development),some which are already being worked up: fluoride ,chlorine,other contaminants in drinking water,GM foods,micro-waved food,radiation of any sort,contaminants in hair/skin products,any OTC/or Rx drug,plastics,cooked foods,contaminated meat,meat,unnatural milk products,milk products,hormones in meat/milk,teflon pans,cleaning products,low potency herbs,low mineral water,low vitamin foods,non-organic foods,low ORAC foods(need to ramp up that ORAC !!), air pollution(outdoor/indoor/in planes),low sunlight exposure,low hydration with low mineral water,inferior protein,improper protein combining,saturated fats,low “good” fats,electricity(indoor; outdoor power lines),foods cooked by chefs with unhappy thoughts,eating while drinking water,non-organic building products, non-organic clothing, leather shoes,ad infinitum.
A new reality game show is coming….
Where In The World is Andy Wakefield?
So true, if you ignore all the overwhelming evidence.
Wacko, do us all a favour and “telescope” yourself out *completely*. Hubble distance would do nicely.
Down Down Down he goes,
Gently Down the cliff…
I just noticed that, as Prometheus points out, one of the authors of the monkey paper is David A. Atwood, who invented BDT, a heavy metal chelator used for cleaning up industrial waste slurry. This is the same stuff marketed by Prof. Boyd Haley as âOxidative Stress Reliefâ (OSR). OSR is currently being enthusiastically fed to autistic children by their parents in the deluded belief that it will suck all the heavy metals out of their mercury/aluminum/whatever-damaged brains and cure their autism. I just thought it was worth highlighting this connection. It does make me wonder what is going on at the University of Kentucky.
While I understand Thoughtful House etc. wanting to distance themselves from AW, I don’t see how they can carry on their anti-vax crusade without him. Even if it was the worst science ever, his study was the only science they had. Now what will they do?
And if my child is so overdosed with metals, how come refrigerator magnets won’t stick to him? That was my science experiment, to determine if I have to chelate him or not. Magnets fell to floor=no chelation necessary.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield announced today his intention to move on to a new phase of leadership…
…a phase that doesn’t involve achieving any actual results or taking any responsibility. In other words, he’s following in Sarah Palin’s footsteps: quitting while pretending it’s not really quitting.
I cannot keep from laughing! Did anyone else get a load of the latest at AoA?
Wakefield Moving into New Leadership Role in Autism Community, Leaving Thoughtful House.
By Dan Olmsted
MESSAGE BEGINS
Shills and other assorted minions . . .
We apologize for the mistakes of a few overzealous and rather inattentive techs in the Terrestrial Countermeasures Division lab. The replicant unit 33.Ab “Orac’s Wackosphere” left the testbench set on 11.
Oh, and Pierce, Cindy wanted to know if the transmogrifier she included in your last crate of Benjamins (do the kids still call them that?) is working.
Keep up the pressure on the rebels my minions and the money and bacon shall flow like T’Ghrachk.
MESSAGE ENDS
Lord Draconis Zeneca, VC, iH7L
PharmaCOM Orbital HQ
0010101101001
@15, yes you couldn’t care less about the facts, just carry on ignoring them the way you ignore reality.
thanks chris
Andrew Wakefield has another autism group that appears to continue to value him, it is the National Autism Association. He is on their Scientific Advisory board: http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/advisory.php
And under their research section he is listed among consultants (Arthur Krigsman too)for Autism & GI Pilot Studies: http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/researchgistudy.php
I have been watching their site and there is no sign of them distancing themselves from Wakefield.
Does anyone know of a blog or site that has analysis by doctors, scientists and researchers with expertise (and access to full text of journal articles) that covers things like the latest vaccine science, autism science, news about reports of adverse reactions to various quack treatments or information about the safety of new potential treatments like Oxytocin, current data on the trends in vaccination rates, and current news about outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases (for instance, the ongoing NY/NJ Mumps outbreak and H1N1)?
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy learning more about the cast of characters, personalities, latest events and drama in the vaccine debate, but lately I’ve been more in the mood to see more expert analysis about recent findings. This would be really helpful when debating vaccines/autism with friends and family on the other side of the debate.
I spent way too much time on PubMed this weekend, but with my limited layperson knowledge and access to only the abstracts typically, I was thinking it would be great if there was an interactive site with a comments section where doctors or scientists were reporting on and analyzing new studies. I know there is some of that on here, but it seems like relatively little now that I realize how much new information is available, especially coming out of UC Davis’ MIND Institute.
Here are just a few of the recent studies and reviews that looked really intriguing. (I think some of these may have been discussed here.)
Geographic distribution of autism in California: A retrospective birth cohort analysis.
Independent and dependent contributions of advanced maternal and paternal ages to autism risk.
A comprehensive volumetric analysis of the cerebellum in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.
Correlations Between Gene Expression and Mercury Levels in Blood of Boys With and Without Autism.
The immune system’s role in the biology of autism.
I have to admit, I was surprised by the last three of these and that’s why it would be helpful to have someone with more expertise explain them.
It would be nice if there was a blog or site with articles like this Maternal Autoantibodies May Increase Autism Risk but with a comment section where doctors and scientists were commenting and discussing the implications for further research.
If anyone knows of anything like this, I would really appreciate you pointing me in the right direction. Thanks!
Whacko, UK MMR rates are going back up. Of course the small coterie of true believers aren’t going to be convinced by the recent actions against Wakers. They don’t consider the evidence to begin with, which is that their children didn’t react to MMR, Wakers didn’t find gut pathology nor replicating virus, nor regression after the MMR. To confront this, even in the wake of the events that proved Wakers to be unethical, callous and fraudulent, is too much for them to bear. They are a write-off and I don’t think anyone involved with this issue thinks that they will be convinced. But an awful lot of those concerned, but haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid are and that has to stick in your craw now doesn’t it.
No one here is whining brain trust, more like Schadenfraude and some gloating. It seems to me that it is more like the merry band of fools that support him are left licking their wounds and trying to re-group. How delicious that their own precious Thoughtful House has ‘turned on them’. I’ll bet that really chaps their collective arses but no one will dare say so for fear of revealing a chink in their armour.
@Unconvinced: if you live near a university, try the medical school if they have one. Most of them have access to articles and can get articles if they don’t have the journals on the shelves. Another option, if you have a big hospital/medical center close to home, is use their library. Medical librarians are great people who love to help people find information (hi, mom!). There may be a nominal fee to get articles/make copies, but if they have the journal in-house you can read them there.
Science-Based Medicine will discuss medical articles sometimes, too, and Orac’s “Friend”, Dr Steve Novella, and others will discuss medical studies there.
I don’t know of any site where physicians have “grand rounds”, as it were and discuss patients, treatments, and research. Maybe some of the physicians who frequent here can help, if there is such a site.
Unfortunately, I can’t help feeling that this fortunate turn of events is due to the fact that the media were bored. And therein lies a lesson for us all.
Lisa @35,
Not to detract from the correct results you got from your magnet experiment, you will only have detected (or not detected) ferrous metals.
Screamed the anti-vax, toxin torturers: “Egads, your son could still be filled with aluminum, stainless steel, nickel, silver or other non-magnetic metal! Quick, administer large doses of the industrial chelator, hurry. You must poison your son using our untested poisons not those pharma based poisons.”
Ba-dump.
What really bothers me about the statements by Wakefield are his claims that there has been an “extraordinary outpouring of support” from “the autism community” and that he is working on behalf of “autism families.”
As a parent of a child who has autism, I wish he and others who support him would stop acting like they are working for me or my child, or, worse yet, like I support them.
There is no single “autism community” or group of “autism families.” People with autism and their families are just like all people and families: some fall for Wakefield/Handley et al’s nonsense, and some (I think most) don’t.
@ 43 MI Dawn,
Thanks. I used to go to the medical library at UCSD frequently (which conveniently had free grandma childcare en route) but then we moved and we’re closer to a university but it doesn’t have a med school (or grandma childcare in town, which was really convenient since I would usually stay until the wee hours when they closed.)
At first, I would pull from the shelves but then I realized I could research and print everything from their computers. There was a fee but it didn’t add up very fast…maybe $20 for several hours of research. I was always afraid to ask the librarians for help because I wasn’t a student and I thought that meant I wasn’t really supposed to be there.
When I was a patient at the local hospital one of the nurses told me she had talked to a mom who had used their library and told me I should try that. I’m not sure how extensive their collection is but I know I should give it a try.
Sorry this is so OT.
While I wish the British anti-vaxxers weren’t “quite like” your american variant, alas we’re not quite there. One day…
Am I the only one looking forward to April, where the final verdict from the GMC regarding Wakefield will be made?
I am predicting that he will get his doctor’s license removed, at the very least.
Also, hopefully some of the fraud complaints people have made about him to the police, will go somewhere. The GMC report clearly showed that he had tried to defraud money from the state.
The disturbing thing is that in the latest “Private Eye”, which also contains a mea culpa from their medical writer, effectively saying “Sorry we kept pushing this much longer than it deserved”, are letters from people who claim to be children of those he used in his studies. THeir opinion seems to be that since Wakefield was the only one taking an interest in their children’s bowel problems that he is a good man doing good work.
Talk about missing the point.
@14,
“Just because he’s been shown to be a fraud once doesn’t mean that all his future papers should be yanked.”
This is standard operating procedure in science, also journalism, which may be way the media is ignoring or denouncing Wakefield. Whatever else may be said, it gives a compelling incentive for honesty, and relaxing it could encourage misconduct. This was pretty much the argument I offered Cranmer for w/drawing the paper last fall.
Disgraced professional desperately tries to re-invent himself after series of indiscretions and atrocious behavior. Announces at press conference that he still needs people’s support and is going to do…. nothing for a while longer….
Yup, St Andy and Tiger Woods are soul mates.
This might get a double posting, sorry in advance.
So there is Johnson at Thoughtful House. I believe we have another Big Pharma conspiracy in play here. She wants more kids to get sick and have long term illnesses that can only be treated by Big Pharma. Why don’t the AoA and GR loonies jump on this one?
Isn’t it funny how the people who are operating genuine conspiracies and who really are trying to disguise their hidden agenda all claim to be angels and that there is a Global Conspiracy by Big Pharma backed by all those shills from medical school … It reminds me of all those fraudulent psychics who warn their potential victims: beware of fake psychics!
Good point Mad, I was in NY City this weekend and passed two store front psychics who had gone out of business in SoHo. My brother-in-law said, “They should have seen it coming.” I said, “Nah, those were just the fake psychics.”
Orac : I think probably Wakefield will wind up at Gen. Rescue, where he will take the title “Chief Medical Researcher.” This will last until he fakes another study.
A game: “guess where Andy will end up?” WOW, you guys all have way too much time on your hands! Most of you(some of you seem to be a little less biased than others) protest a little too much at the idea that there are too many children being harmed by vaccinations. You pretend that the science has asked and answered all the right questions when obviously it has not. I guarantee you Dr. Andy is not wasting all his time on blogs; he’s actually helping kids.
…from the person who trolls the scienceblog boards making statements that have been refuted 2-3 dozen times on this site alone. Is a hypocrisectomy an elective procedure, or did you have that part of your brain removed as a child?
As long as he ends up in an existing firm, it’s a net positive for the pro vaccine side.
Andy Snakefield. This one got away. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T0I5UepXMA
Boy, trolls are afoot today! Did Respectful Insolence get linked somewhere, or are the kooks just lashing out because they’re getting desperate? Dare I say, “death throes”?
“So there is Johnson at Thoughtful House. I believe we have another Big Pharma conspiracy in play here. She wants more kids to get sick and have long term illnesses that can only be treated by Big Pharma. Why don’t the AoA and GR loonies jump on this one?”
$urely, you je$t!
The woman is loaded, and she’s donating millions to fund their pseudoscience. Why would they want to offend their most generous financial backer? Nevermind that if Tylenol (J&J’s #1 selling OTC drug) is proven to be behind the spike in autism, as Becker and Schultz suggest, what they’re actually doing is helping her set autism research BACK a few years. Way to go, AoA and GR!
Actually, I asked that very same question of Mr. Blaxill a few months ago, in response to my deleted posts about this at AoA, and that’s pretty much what he told me…turning legitimate Tylenol concerns into a personal attack on the Johnsons is a definite no-no!
Hot damn, I called it! I predicted that Wakefield would adopt the moniker of Dr. Andy and become available for children’s birthday parties; his specialties being magic tricks, balloon animals and venipuncture.
Science Mom, that made me laugh.
I think he is going to move to South Carolina and take up with his old partner, Hugh Fudenberg.
LOL, Science Mom. Your comment made me think of this commercial, which is just full of Wakefield Metaphor Win, IMO.
They won’t get off my lawn! They play their darn rock music too loud! And they ripped the mask off my face before I could get away with it!!!
Holy hypocrisy, Mark Blaxill! Jen in TX tells us that he said that “turning legitimate Tylenol concerns into a personal attack on the Johnsons is a definite no-no!”
So, Mr. Blaxill. It’s not OK to personally attack the Johnsons but it’s perfectly fine to attack Gardiner Harris (The New York Times journalist). AoA recently published a story attacking Harris over the fact that “as recently as November 2004, Crane Harris worked for a pharmaceutical company” Crane Harris is Gardiner Harris’ brother. One of a long series of attacks based on relationships to “big pharma”. But oh, no, not OK to attack someone from “big pharma” that supports the antivaxers.
@Matt P
Me too.
http://wakefieldwatch.blogspot.com/
@Unconvinced:
I’m sorry that I genuinely don’t have time to really look in depth at all the papers you just linked to, as this is an extremely busy time for me just now. However, if you want, and this offer is open for the indefinite future as well, email me at luna_northcat “at” yahoo.co.uk — I can get many of the journal articles (not all, but we do have an institutional subscription to many) and I’m not above mailing a .pdf or three. And I might be able to contribute a few relevant pointers here and there, as long as you don’t mind waiting a bit for them and don’t expect them to be beautifully organised.
Sadly the systemic attack on these fine doctors in order to cover up vaccine damage and doctors perks from drug company profits, will only go to show how the drug companies control the GMC through a combination of the pockets of some doctors and the intimidation of the majority. This is sad as the majority of doctors will be suppressed still further into not speaking out to prevent citizens being damaged for drug company interests.
Children have a wide ranging level of effectiveness of their individual immune systems, which ebb and wane throughout their development. It is when a childâs immune system is at a low ebb, often without signs of an illness that vaccination can do the maximum harm and this can result in the immune system HPA axis dropping into a trough of dysfunction that due to the immune overload and secondary complications then holding the child in this trough, the child may not escape it and goes on to develop increasing system demand for steroid and resultant insufficiencies and secondary complications including learning difficulty. A large organ needing high anti inflammatory steroid response like the bowel is a major steroid demand overload factor if damaged.
The truth is, & it is well known, giving single vaccinations reduces the number of children forced into a trough of insufficiency greatly and only the most challenged children are pushed into the trough of mainly cortisol insufficiency or HPA modulation dysfunction, which if prolonged results in more permanent organ/gland/tissue damage.
The profession are very frightened of where Dr Wakefieldâs research will eventually go and what it will reveal to the masses because learning difficulty is just the sharp end of a scale of under functioning caused by vaccination, drugs, diet and environmental factors combined, which if stopped would increase the populations neurological and physical functioning back to normal levels and make the population far more difficult to suppress and control.
We are indeed only as functional as our HPA axis permits us to be, by both its sufficiency of chemistry and stability of modulation, our brain is in fact a slave to the same at times of insufficiency as we can tell by its natural dysfunction when the body is overloaded by the challenge of physical illness, vaccination or sometimes drugs.
Although it is true that one person can function far better than another at the same level of chemistry through their intellect or by suppression of feelings during a period of whole body stress leaving only sufficient chemistry for logical, be it narcissistic temporary functioning while we recover, due to the dynamic range of functioning becoming so wide across society as we have evolved whilst subject to vaccination and drugs, then those at the bottom can be very affected by drugs or vaccination as the measure of risk is based on average functioning or above when drug companies carry out testing. This is evident by the type of test subjects sought for such testing.
I am afraid Dr Wakefield is completely correct and it is well known in the profession, but because this crosses over into sensitive areas like HPA axis failures, the dying process and secondary presentations of chronic physical and mental illness due to adrenal insufficiency/fatigue & HPA axis general dysfunction, then the drug companies prefer to vaccinate & then treat the secondary conditions that are often introduced even later in life due to the early roll of the HPA axis, caused by both vaccination and drugs, both lucrative products.
Doctors and Trusts also have a major problem in this area as it is the “master of disguise” in presenting as secondary illnesses that if correctly identified trace back through primary illnesses to the vaccination process and other drug suppression of the HPA axis. Cases identified would cost through med/neg actions & set case law for others.
Dr Wakefield you are indeed a brave man under obvious systemic attack & cover up, the scale of the 1692 Salem chorus of finger pointers gives the game away.
First off, I’m going to go with #2. If Handley’s smart, he’ll realize that Wakefield’s toxic and his organization’s modest public credibility would be crushed if he associated himself with them. And #3 is unlikely.
So Wakefield to SafeMinds makes sense. (Even though SafeMinds was supposedly all about the mercury, and Wakers is all about the MMR. Weirdie.)
It’s like hot stove league for autism quacks.
But here’s the bottom line for those who attempt to defend Wakefield’s actions. Even if Andrew Wakefield is ultimately correct, and that the MMR plays a role in autism (highly unlikely) – his science is awful and his actions unjustifiable.
Every time you call Wakefield a martyr or a brave maverick doctor, you are essentially saying that the ends justify the means, and that anything is fair game in the interest of “science”.
HPA…you know, if you say those letter in a certain way, it sounds like “Happeh”, whom Dale is sounding a little bit like right now. Complete with fact-free assertions about coverups and unassailable research that doesn’t exist.
Yeah, love.
1) The MMR vaccine was withdrawn in Canada after concerns over safety (matter of public record). The Urabe strain of the vaccine was known to cause meningitis.
2)It was also withdrawn from Japan and never reintroduced.
3) SKB were reluctant to obtain a license for Pluserix in the UK as they were extremely worried about liability. They only had the Urabe strain of the virus at the time.
4) Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials were circumvented and Pluserix licensing was fast-tracked.
5) Introduction of Pluserix was prompted as a competitor to encourage Merck Sharp and Dohme to lower the price of their rival product.
6) A whistleblower in the JCVI tried to press for funds to set up serveillance of side effects after the introduction of MMR in Scotland. These requests were denied.
7) The MMR Urabe strain was first *withdrawn* in the UK in 1992. Clear problems with meningitis emerged. Pluserix was withdrawn following a Nottingham study. It was this that prompted Salisbury to make an emergency trip to MSD offices in the US to ask for the worldwide MMR to cover the gap. A confidential JCVI reported commented on the wisdom of the UK’s withdrawal of the URAbe strain vaccine.
How come you guys have so much to say about MMR safety, yet you don’t appear to know this basic history of it?
@Dale
Citations, please.
The MMR used in the USA since 1971 and the UK since 1992 has the Jeryl Lynn mumps strain.
Also, the meningitis associated with the Urabe strain was small compared to the meningitis causes mumps and measles.
Todd W: The withdrawal of MMR from Japan & Canada & UK you will find easy to verify with Google. 3 & 6 come from an anonymous whistleblower within the JCVI, according to Dr Wakefield. (Unlike yourselves, I think Wakefield has been poorly represented in the media).
A scan of the confidential JCVI report is available to view here at 30:19 min. of this video. Please try to keep your mind open despite your deep dislike of Wakefield. The reference to the wisdom of the UK’s withdrawal is at the bottom of the scanned page.
“Also, the meningitis associated with the Urabe strain was small compared to the meningitis causes mumps and measles.”
Chris: do you know how many cases of Meningitis the UIrabe strain caused in Japan, Canada and Brazil? If so could you post the statistics?
“Safety studies of MMR vaccine are crap. They’re the best crap we’ve got but they’re still crap.” – Dr T Jefferson, Senior Editor Cochrane Review, ‘The Truth About Vaccines’
…
Sorry…. Video here:
http://www.autismone.org/content/andrew-wakefield-md
@Dale
Did your links get messed up? If so, please post them again. No need to post a citation stating that MMR was withdrawn from Japan, resulting in a subsequent increase in measles and mumps cases and their associated complications.
As to the rest, please post links to sources. “According to Wakefield” doesn’t instill me with much confidence, since his honesty is in doubt. I’m willing to be shown that I am wrong, though. Posting to other sources that verify that what he says is true would be a good start.
Also, Dale, the recently withdrawn Neurotoxicology paper was not the MMR, but on a version of a vaccine no longer used. Also, there seem to be other issues at play when he is booted out of Thoughtful House.
@Dale
From what I could find, it was only MMR vaccines that used the Urabe strain of mumps that were recalled. Canada (and the UK) both have MMR vaccines available, but using a different mumps strain.
As to Japan, here is information from the World Health Organization with info on immunizations in Japan. (It’s a Google cached version since the original page was coming up blank.) Under “Immunization Schedule”, note that they have a measles and a measles/rubella vaccine, though no mumps.
As to possible Pluserix shenanigans, do you have citations other than Wakefield? As I said, his honesty and integrity are in doubt. Just as forewarning, do not cite whale.to, as it is not a reliable source of information, either.
In sum, your primary objections center around one particular brand of MMR vaccine using one particular strain of mumps (Urabe). This in no way reflects on other MMR vaccines or vaccines in general. If the things you claim are true, it only condemns that particular Urabe-containing MMR vaccine.
“Also, the meningitis associated with the Urabe strain was small compared to the meningitis causes mumps and measles.”
I’m not sure I understand your reasoning here… Surely the overall rate of meningitis would have fallen in Japan, when in fact the MMR vaccine was presumably withdrawn following a *rise* in cases of meningitis?
“According to Wakefield” doesn’t instill me with much confidence, since his honesty is in doubt.”
I appreciate that that’s so for you generally, but won’t you consider looking at 30:19 of the autismone video (link above) just to see the JCVI viewed it right to withdraw the Urabe strain? Do you think Wakefield would actually forge a JCVI document?
I appreciate the Jeryll-Lynn (sp?) problems might not exist as those that beset the Urabe strain did. Nonetheless, the PLuserix shenanigans show the Brit government introduced an MMR vaccine *after* it was withdrawn in two other countried for lack of safety.
I will go hunt down multiple sources. I may be *some time*.
I do have one point of curiousity I might raise with you (or three):
1) Do you have any thought about the high esteem Dr Wakefield’s was held in and the commendations he received for his research, until he made the fated decision to investigate the MMR?
2) Wakefield argues in the video, convincingly in my opinion, that the editor of the Lancet knew of his involvement with litigants all along, because he produced letters Horton had received on this subject which predated the Lancet publication. Do you think Wakefield forged even *these* letters? Seems pretty unlikely to me.
3) The Lancet kids’ parents have been pleased with Wakefield’s work because they feel they are getting due attention for the first time. Do you think the parents are really so stupid they’ve been unable to tell actual treatment from placebo in what… fourteen years?
@Dale
Can’t view the video at the moment, but I will address the three points of curiosity you raised:
1) Wakefield may have been a decent gastroenterologist, though as demonstrated by his original, now-retracted, Lancet paper and his subsequent studies, he is a pretty piss-poor researcher. He has also demonstrated a very low level of investigational ethics. However, he is a pretty smooth-talker, so I have no doubt that some have held (and continue to hold) him in high esteem. The esteem others have for him, though, has no bearing on the facts of his conduct.
2) I can’t say one way or the other if he forged the letters. He might have. He might not have. He may have actually shown them to the editor, or he may be lying about that. The editor he showed them to may have had no power or any connection to publishing the paper. At any rate, the paper itself did not disclose his conflicts of interest.
3) I do not think the parents are stupid. They were (and may still be) desperate for answers and help. Wakefield, as I mentioned, is a smooth-talker. I have no doubt that he treated the parents, if not the children, with respect (or at least the semblance thereof). But again, the parents’ opinions have no bearing on the facts of his conduct.
Now, do you dispute that he acted unethically? If so, please explain how clinically unnecessary invasive procedures such as colonoscopies and lumbar punctures, that were not in the best interests of the children, were not unethical. Please explain how paying children 5 pounds (undue influence) for blood at his kid’s birthday party, without prior ethics board approval, was not unethical.
Before you answer, I suggest reading the Declaration of Helsinki, the ICH Guidelines on Human Research Protections, the Nuremburg Code and the Belmont Report. Think about his conduct in light of those.
Straw man argument. Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey may be blithering idiots, but most parents who believe the vaccine-autism link aren’t stupid. They’re just human, with all the human tendencies to confuse correlation with causation. I know you don’t believe it, but assume for the sake of argument that vaccines are completely unrelated to autism. Yet we have millions of children between the ages of 2 and 3 being vaccinated every year and thousands of children showing symptoms of autism between 2 and 3. By random chance alone, there should be a significant number of children who show their first noticed signs of autism within a week or two of being vaccinated. At the level of the individual, it would appear all the world as though the vaccine caused it, and you don’t have to be stupid to make that mistake.
It takes science and epidemiology to determine whether such associations are consistent with random chance or occur at a much higher rate than would be expected by random chance. Thus far, evidence overwhelmingly favors the former explanation, that vaccines are not associated with autism at a rate that is more than what would be expected by random chance alone.
Now getting parents who see their child regress in close temporal proximity to having been vaccinated will have a hard time believing that, because we are hard-wired to assume that correlation equals causation. In evaluating such cases, science goes counter to what our brains want to tell us. Again, it’s not a matter of being “stupid.”
The same thing goes for placebo treatments and biomedical woo. Autism is a condition of developmental delay, not developmental stasis. Autistic children can and do develop. A significant minority of them even develop sufficiently to lose their diagnosis of autism. Moreover, their development and other symptoms wax and wane. Parents often try various forms of woo, and if they happen to try something right before a child has a spurt of development or a child with bowel symptoms has a remission of those symptoms, it will seem all the world as though the treatment did it when looking at a single subject. Again, it’s not a matter of being “stupid,” it’s a matter of being hard-wired to seek patterns and correlations and to attribute causation to them. That’s why randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blinded trials came to be accepted as the gold standard in testing the efficacy of therapies.
As far as I’m aware, the 1997 Dawbarns-Horton letter (one other letter was sent so close to publication deadline it should be reasonably excluded, and Wakefields own letter in The Lancet May 1998 does not accurately portray his involvement – indeed it implies his role was related to evaluation only) merely stated that Wakefield was ‘working with’ the legal firm in research. At no point does it state Wakefields involvement accurately, and the wording could even be read as implying Wakefield was already independantly researching the condition.
None of this changes the issue that it was Wakefields responsibility to declare his conflicts of interest in all applicable contexts and that some of the charges of dishonesty relate to his subsequent representation of his role and research.
People can piss on Horton all they want. At best it indicates that Wakefield did not live up to his responsibility as primary authour, at worst it could indicate that Horton dropped the ball and then lied about it.
Niether option exonerates Wakefield. It’s time to stop pretending other people are to blame for Wakefields failings.
Dale comments:
As was mentioned above, the Urabe strain was never used in the US MMR vaccines, which have always had the Jeryl Lynn stain.
The Urabe strain was used because it has a lower failure rate (5 – 15%) compared to the Jeryl Lynn strain (7 – 38%). The mumps component of the MMR (and stand-alone mumps vaccines) has the highest failure rate of the three. The Urabe strain has a lower failure rate, but has an unacceptably high incidence of meningitis (as high as 1 in 15,000 or 0.06 per thousand)compared to the Jeryl Lynn strain (meningitis incidence of 1 in 150,000 or less – 0.006 per thousand).
Mumps virus (the wild type) has a very high incidence of meningitis (1-3 per thousand), as well as high rates of orchitis and oophoritis. Even the Urabe strain of mumps has a much lower incidence of meningitis than the wild type virus.
Canada and Japan decided to drop the Urabe strain and go back to the Jeryl Lynn strain because they felt that their immunisation programmes were good enough that “herd immunity” would overcome the high failure rate of the Jeryl Lynn vaccine strain. Other countries, where the vaccination programmes are not so good, have elected to keep the Urabe strain. It’s a matter of balancing risk and benefit.
It’s not that the Urabe strain was a “catastrophe” that was covered up – it is more effective but it has a higher incidence of side effects.
If you’re looking for a “scandal” in mumps vaccination, I’d suggest you look at the Rubini strain, which is used pretty much only in Switzerland. This strain has a much higher failure rate (up to 77% in one study) than the Jeryl Lynn strain (failure rate of about 35%) but is still being used.
A good review of mumps vaccines and meningitis is:
Bonnet et al. Mumps vaccine virus strains and aeptic meningitis. Vaccine. (2006) 24:7037-7045
Prometheus
@Matt P and Kristen
Me three.
I’m tired of the fringies speaking as if they represent autistic children and their families.
@Lisa
I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read your magnet story! Even though not all metals are magnetic, it is a vivid picture you painted! You made me laugh!
@Orac
My vote is Costa Rica, although isn’t there is a facility in Tiajuana that is available since Clark died?
“The Lancet May 1998 does not accurately portray his involvement – indeed it implies his role was related to evaluation only) merely stated that Wakefield was ‘working with’ the legal firm in research. At no point does it state Wakefields involvement accurately, and the wording could even be read as implying Wakefield was already independantly researching the condition.”
But what do you mean? What does the letter fail to state? Did you actually view the whole video, including the copyright spat which went on for months between Barr and Horton?
“It’s time to stop pretending other people are to blame for Wakefields failings.”
It’s not a question of blaming other people for what Wakefield did in my view, but of trying to raise the level of debate slightly beyond a two-dimensional sociopath wakefield v. St Andy back-and-forth. It[‘s reasonable to point out it’s inaccurate to say Horton was uninformed in this respect.
“As was mentioned above, the Urabe strain was never used in the US MMR vaccines, which have always had the Jeryl Lynn stain.”
Ok… are you sure all the litigants received the Jeryl Lynn strain?
I’m afraid I don’t fully understand the relevance of all your references so, perhaps to help me, you could tell me *how* governments were able to relate the meningitis epidemics in Japan and Canada to the MMR in the first instance? Perhaps you think they were mistaken to do so?
“They’re just human, with all the human tendencies to confuse correlation with causation. I know you don’t believe it, but assume for the sake of argument that vaccines are completely unrelated to autism.”
I don’t know whether they do or not… that’s all I can say. I’m just wondering how people can be sure that they *don’t*. As you’ll know, anti-vaxxers claim the key findings in Wakefield’s research have been reproduced in five different studies:
Krigsman, A. (Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine Director of Gastroenterology Services), et al.,Ileocolonoscopy in Children with Autistic spectrum Disorder and Chronic Gastrointestinal symptoms. Autism Insights 2010:2 1-11.
Gonzalez, L., et al., Endoscopic and Histological Characteristics of the Digestive Mucosa in Autistic
Children with gastro-Intestinal Symptoms. Arch Venez Pueric Pediatr, 2005;69:19-25.
Balzola, F., et al., Panenteric IBD-like disease in a patient with regressive autism shown for the first time by wireless capsule enteroscopy: Another piece in the jig-saw of the gut-brain syndrome? American Journal of Gastroenterology, 2005. 100(4): p. 979-981.
Balzola, F., et al., Autistic enterocolitis: Confrmation of a new infammatory bowel disease in an Italian cohort of patients. Gastroenterology 2005;128(Suppl. 2);A-303.
Galiatsatos, P., et al., Autistic enterocolitis: Fact or fiction. Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology. 2009;23:95-98.
“Now, do you dispute that he acted unethically? If so, please explain how clinically unnecessary invasive procedures such as colonoscopies and lumbar punctures, that were not in the best interests of the children, were not unethical. Please explain how paying children 5 pounds (undue influence) for blood at his kid’s birthday party, without prior ethics board approval, was not unethical.”
Paying children for blood at a birthday party – no contest. That was wrong. “Unnecessary invasive procedures” seems to be a value judgment to me. There was a letter in ‘Private Eye’ where a mother of one of these kids said she was *pleased* that the procedures had been undertaken as then kids could not speak for themselves and describe the symptoms.
“I’ve been removed from the GMC simply because I could not take any more of the nonsense I was listening to. We are parents. We haven’t been listened to… We’ve been entirely ignored… I stand up… to tell the panel that it’s us the parents they ought to be listening to and hearing what we’ve got to say… I was manhandled and removed out of the hearing… Those doctors – they kept saying that they’d ‘failed this… failed that’… It’s absolute nonsense. My son was treated by those doctors.. My son’s quality of life was made so much better by those doctors. They did not do anything that they are being condemned to have done… To hear those lies.. Those doctors failed noone. This is absolutely fabricated.” – Mother at hearing of GMC v Wakefield, Walker-Smith and Murch
Dale, we are familiar with those studies that claim to replicate Wakefield. They actually don’t (and Autism Insights is a vanity journal that has Wakefield on the editorial board), see:
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/2010/02/independent-wakefield-way-really.html
Dale you said:
The American litigants, yes. They would include one of the twelve in Wakefield’s now retracted Lancet paper, and all of the children included in the Autism Omnibus cases.
Also, medical records for several of the children that Wakefield recruited for his lawyer paid “study” actually had symptoms before the MMR vaccine.
Prometheus clearly wrote that the risk of meningitis from the Urabe mumps strain was much less than wild mumps. You seem to have trouble understanding. If you have any real scientific evidence that the MMR causes more harm than mumps, measles and rubella please present it. Just be sure that they are available in a medical school library.
Also show evidence for this claim: “the meningitis epidemics in Japan and Canada.” Real evidence, not something you cut and pasted from a web page. Something like this paper:
Vaccine. 2007 Mar 30;25(14):2742-7. Epub 2006 Jan 31.
A comparative study of the incidence of aseptic meningitis in symptomatic natural mumps patients and monovalent mumps vaccine recipients in Japan.
In the abstract:
Look, there are two possibilities:
1) Despite plenty of opportunity, Wakefield neglected to make the fact that he was being paid to support anti-MMR ligitation, or the fact that many of the subjects of his study were involved in litigation and had been referred to him by the same lawyers who were paying him, clear to Richard Horton, to the co-authors of his paper, or to any scientist reading his paper – all of whom needed to know about those issues in order to properly evaluate the data therein.
2) Despite plenty of opportunity, Wakefield neglected to make the fact that he was being paid to support anti-MMR ligitation, or the fact that many of the subjects of his study were involved in litigation and had been referred to him by the same lawyers who were paying him, clear to the co-authors of his paper, or to any scientist reading his paper – all of whom needed to know about those issues in order to properly evaluate the data therein. – but he did tell Richard Horton, at least the part about being paid by lawyers, even if he left out the part about the lawyers providing him with the majority of individuals in the extremely small sample he was drawing his conclusions from.
Why should we waste an inordinate amount of time trying to extract from an endless “Yes I did No you didn’t” between Wakefield and Horton the truth about whether Wakefield fulfilled this tiny, tiny, tiny bit of his professional and ethical responsibilities, when it swims in an absolute sea of such responsibilities that we know Wakefield abdicated? It is nothing but a rhetorical trick by Wakefield’s devotees to pretend that the answer could matter so much, that it could tip the balance from “sociopath wakefield” to “St Andy”. Even in the scenario where Wakefield disclosed everything to Horton including the rigging of the sample group, that only puts Horton on the list of “guilty of serious wrongdoing”; in no way could it take Wakefield off.
There is some interesting discussion on Wakefield’s activity in this Australian program
Indeed, whether Horton was fully informed or not is irrelevant to determining whether Wakefield lived up to his responsibilities as lead authour.
It’s been established in front of the highest relevant institutional authourity that he did not, including in instances that are not related to his contact with Horton.
That Horton was informed of ‘some’ involvement is not under question – it is not unusual for clinicians to work with private firms to provide evaluation and assessment, or to provide expert advice, guidance or reports – what is under question is whether the full extent and nature of the inter-relationship was properly detailed. Merely stating a relationship exists is insufficient. Even John Stones’ extensive “Smoke and Mirrors” article failed to produce a single example of Wakefields role being fully detailed.
Of course, the Barr letters are irrelevant. It was not the responsibility of other parties to declare Wakefields potential conflicts of interest, nor is it sufficient to only declare them to the editor of a publication.
This is, at best, a diversion from the facts of Wakefields case. Even if Horton did know about the extent and unusual nature of the Wakefield-litigation relationship, it at best makes him incompetant or a liar and at worst indicates that he may have been complict in getting the article published despite its’ limitations.
None of it helps Wakefield a jot, unless – rather laughably – you believe a single instance of Wakefield making minimal effort to ‘do the right thing’ (but somehow failing mention it in the very article itself) makes up for the multiple proven instances of him not doing so.
“Indeed, whether Horton was fully informed or not is irrelevant to determining whether Wakefield lived up to his responsibilities as lead authour.”
The point I’m discussing with reference to Horton is: Did Wakefield mislead Horton about his involvement with litigants? Because that was the charge? I believe Wakefield shows that charge to be false beyond question in the video I quoted.
“Why should we waste an inordinate amount of time trying to extract from an endless “Yes I did No you didn’t” between Wakefield and Horton the truth about whether Wakefield fulfilled this tiny, tiny, tiny bit of his professional and ethical responsibilities”
Because it demonstrates that the GMC upheld as true a charge which was actually false. Wakefield presumably has no option but to address the charges against him one by one. I must say it seems a little odd to me that you have no interest in this revelation.
“1) Despite plenty of opportunity, Wakefield neglected to make the fact that he was being paid to support anti-MMR ligitation, or the fact that many of the subjects of his study were involved in litigation and had been referred to him by the same lawyers who were paying him, clear to Richard Horton, to the co-authors of his paper, or to any scientist reading his paper – all of whom needed to know about those issues in order to properly evaluate the data therein.
2) Despite plenty of opportunity, Wakefield neglected to make the fact that he was being paid to support anti-MMR ligitation, or the fact that many of the subjects of his study were involved in litigation and had been referred to him by the same lawyers who were paying him, clear to the co-authors of his paper, or to any scientist reading his paper – all of whom needed to know about those issues in order to properly evaluate the data therein. – but he did tell Richard Horton, at least the part about being paid by lawyers, even if he left out the part about the lawyers providing him with the majority of individuals in the extremely small sample he was drawing his conclusions from.”
Eh? Please actually watch the video in full? Horton was informed of Wakefield’s role with the litigants, as the video shows. He then claimed he had no knowledge of Wakefield’s role with them when he gave testimony. Not a waste of time in my opinion to actually address the facts in respect of a serious GMC charge.
“Ok… are you sure all the litigants received the Jeryl Lynn strain?
The American litigants, yes.”
No, I’m asking about all 12 Lancet children litigants, – the British ones. According to parent David Thrower, some of the Lancet litigants were damaged by the Urabe strain. Please see his comment at 43:00 min. of the video on this page:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/07/in-light-of-the-ppc-ordering-the-times-newspaper-toremove-brian-deers-latest-material-from-its-website-i-thought-it-would-be.html
Did you just change your ‘nym? Well one of them was American. Is going from saying it was the MMR to the Urabe strain moving the goalposts?
And I am not about to read anything AoA puts out, since I do not consider that a valid source of evidence. I have explained very clearly what is valid evidence, and random unbiased websites do not fit the criteria.
And why go on about Urabe measles, when that stopped being used in the UK six years before the Lancet paper came out? Actually, since many of the Lancet children were very young they may not have had the Urabe strain. They were between 2 1/2 to almost 10 years old. The younger ones would not have had the Urabe strain, along with the one American.
It is like going on and on about thimerosal in the USA, even though it has been removed from pediatric vaccines (including the seldom used influenza vaccines) for almost decades.
The Lancet paper was not about Urabe meningitis, but about “measles in the gut.” Which actually was not found.
If it was all about the Urabe strain, then all the children would have been old enough, and there would not have been an American… and they would all have had the same MMR vaccine!
It has been explained to Dale multiple times that the risk of meningitis from the Urabe mumps component is much less than from actual mumps. This has been verified by research in Japan which has only been using non-mandatory single mumps vaccine for several years. The paper I posted clearly showed that there is now a greater risk of meningitis, and there are other papers showing an increase in mumps acquired hearing loss from mumps.
Now show some clear evidence that the MMR vaccine carries more risk than measles, mumps and rubella. Post real research, do not post the now retracted 1998 Lancet paper, nor a web site like Age of Autism, Natural News or (unless you want us to have to clean off our monitors from spit-takes) whale.to.
Are you talking about the 52-minute-and-10-second video you posted? Presenting nearly an hour’s worth of video and telling people “somewhere in here is proof of the assertion that I want you to believe” is not the same thing as proving an assertion. See above about “Why should we waste an inordinate amount of time…”
Right, and falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus, right? Wrong. Even if that one charge against Wakefield was false – that out of all the people he should have notified about his conflicts of interests, he actually did notify one – it’s not the tip of the iceberg. It’s not even the tip of an ice cube. Wakefield is not “a brave man under obvious systemic attack & cover up,” he is not “St. Andy,” he is a greedy self-centered man who told lies for his own aggrandizement and profit.
Aled, I did go and look at your AoA link. Well, one reason why you cannot trust that website is the Brian Deer articles are on the website:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683643.ece
So obviously there is something very wrong with that article. I believe it had to do with Wakefield misrepresenting what actually happened, and a newspaper with like the Sunday Times was not going to play his games. More explanation here:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2009/07/wakefield-distortion-and-the-sunday-times/
I will also not spend an hour of life watching a video endorsed by Age of Autism. Now I think I shall go back and read more Countering Age of Autism.
I see Andrew Wakefield’s name as speaker has been dropped from the Autism Research Institute spring 2010 conference – it’s still there on a Google Feb 1st 2010 cache
SUNDAY GENERAL SESSION – APRIL 11th
9:00-10:00 Autism â The Vagrant in the Brainstem
SPEAKER Andrew Wakefield, MB BS
but not the most up-to-date website listing
SUNDAY GENERAL SESSION – APRIL 11th
9:00-10:00 TBA
SPEAKER.
He’s listed presenting the topic below at Autism One 2010 conference in May and speaking about legal matters too.
Autism and the vagrant in the brainstem
This talk examines the possibility that brainstem injury plays a central role in autism. In light of recent observations of brainstem injury in a primate model of vaccine-associated effects on early neurodevelopment, and an analysis of the scientific literature, it is proposed that, as an epicentric event, damage to the dorsal vagal complex (DVC) of the brainstem may be necessary and sufficient to initiate the central and systemic features of autism, including the many that fall outside the behavioral definition of this condition. Mechanisms by which primary systemic inflammation can cause brainstem damage are presented with reference to the published literature. The talk discusses the anatomical predeliction of the DVC for injury resulting form a variety of mechanisms including disruption to the blood supply in the developing brain, environmental toxicity and, via retrograde vagal pathways, intestinal inflammation. Ways of examining this theory are discussed.
@Chris
Thanks for bringing up the irrelevance of the Urabe mumps strain in regard to the retracted Lancet paper. I was wondering why the hell Aled/Dale was going on about it, since Wakefield’s study was all about measles, not mumps.
Hortons actual claim is this:
“4. That the children who were reported in the Lancet study were also part of a Legal Aid Board funded pilot project, led by Dr Wakefield-a pilot project with the aim of investigating the grounds for pursuing a multi-party legal action on behalf of parents of allegedly vaccine-damaged children, the existence of which was not disclosed to the editors of The Lancet.
5. That the results eventually reported in the 1998 Lancet paper were passed to lawyers and used to justify the multi-party legal action prior to publication, a fact that was not disclosed to the editors of The Lancet.
6. That Dr Wakefield received £55 000 from the Legal Aid Board to conduct this pilot project and that, since there was a substantial overlap of children in both the Legal Aid Board funded pilot project and the Lancet paper, this was a financial conflict of interest that should have been declared to the editors and his co-authors and was not.”
None of the letters or correspondance mentioned by the “Smokes and Mirrors” article mentions any of this.
Once one considers the specifity of Hortons denial, it is abundantly clear that it is insufficient to declare that Horton was informed of Wakefield “working with” Dawbarns as if it is equivilant to declaring all conflicts of interest.
If Dale wishes people to watch the video, he will list the counter-claims and provide exact timestamps to each counter claim.
“And why go on about Urabe measles, when that stopped being used in the UK six years before the Lancet paper came out? Actually, since many of the Lancet children were very young they may not have had the Urabe strain.”
As a point of curiousity, I was wondering whether you guys actually knew whether the Lancet kids had had the Urabe strain. I take it you don’t.
“It has been explained to Dale multiple times that the risk of meningitis from the Urabe mumps component is much less than from actual mumps.”
That patronising tone is not so attractive… Did the Urabe strain come to be associated with meningitis folowing an increase in child meningitis? A “yes” or “no” will be fine.
“Aled, I did go and look at your AoA link. Well, one reason why you cannot trust that website is the Brian Deer articles are on the website:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683643.ece”
Sorry – that doesn’t make any sense. What do you mean?
“Presenting nearly an hour’s worth of video and telling people “somewhere in here is proof of the assertion that I want you to believe” is not the same thing as proving an assertion.”
Good lord – I actually gave the precise times in the video at which the charge (of misleading his colleagues over his role in litigation) was disproved. I can’t make it any easier.
“Good lord – I actually gave the precise times in the video at which the charge (of misleading his colleagues over his role in litigation) was disproved. I can’t make it any easier.”
I’ve just re-read all of your posts, under both names, and it appears that you didn’t.
You will:
provide a full quote to your ‘original’ post
provide the post number
or:
link to a transcript
or:
provide a full reference to the letters supposedly involved
“I will also not spend an hour of life watching a video endorsed by Age of Autism.”
It’s a video almost exclusively of the Lancet parents, talking about their children’s illnesses and treatments.
Given you have so much to say about the “mistreatment” of these children, it’s incredible you refuse to spend one hour listening to see whether their parents agree with you. These parents who have lived every day with these poor disabled kids for years and years… You know better not only than them, but also three senior gastroenterologists, including the founding father of pediatric gastroenterology in this country.
Why?
“Wakefield is not “a brave man under obvious systemic attack & cover up,” he is not “St. Andy,” he is a greedy self-centered man who told lies for his own aggrandizement and profit.”
I’m not sure our debate is likely to evolve to a level where real exchange of ideas is possible. I leave you with some comments from one of the parents of the Lancet children:
“I am at a loss to explain why there has been this charade of a hearing. What exactly is it that Dr Wakefield and the other doctors are supposed to have done wrong? They simply saw a need and did their utmost to investigate it. I didn’t then and I don’t know have any complaint about the doctors or the treatment received at the Royal Free; neither do any of the other parents whose children were seen there…. When questioned I made it quite clear that as far as I was concerned the doctors had acted in my son’s best interests at all times.” – Rochelle Poulter
Bear in mind, John Stone sat in the hearings and appears to have copies of at least some of the letters, yet he was unable to quote a single instance of Wakefield fully and properly informing Horton (who you must remember was not the only person Wakefield should have informed) depite writing an extensive article about it. If the paragon of the vaccine skeptic movement in the UK failed so badly, why should we trust some random dude on the internet?
Bear in mind that Wakefields defence in the GMC hearing was not that he had actually informed the Lancet editors of COI’s but that they weren’t actually COI’s.
@Dale/Aled (would you just pick a handle and stick with it?)
As I said before, the parents’ opinions do not really matter insofar as whether his behavior was ethical or not. Once again, go read the appropriate ethical guidelines and regulations for human research, as I listed up in post #84. I would also recommend reviewing the pertinent parts of Federal Regulations (21 CFR 45 and 50, IIRC) governing human subjects protections and institutional review boards. While these are specific to the U.S., I imagine that the U.K., being a member of the International Conference on Harmonization, has similar laws.
Once you have reviewed those, please tell us how paying children 5 pounds (undue influence) at a birthday party for the purposes of research without ethics board approval or an informed consent process is ethical. Please tell us how performing invasive clinical procedures (colonoscopies and lumbar punctures), for which there was no clinical indication and from which the children would not receive benefit, was ethical. Also please tell us how not disclosing his conflicts of interest in the published paper and not notifying all of the relevant parties about his conflicts of interest was ethical.
@Dale/Aled
Here’s a link to the U.S. Office for Human Research Protections. There you can find links to the appropriate U.S. regulations, as well as links to international issues.
“It’s a video almost exclusively of the Lancet parents, talking about their children’s illnesses and treatments.”
Then it’s irrelevant then.
We aren’t here to talk about what the parents ‘think’, although I personally find it dubious to hold sway in the parents ‘trust’ of Wakefield, given that he’s accused of being unethical and dishonest, including in his treatment of their children. It’s not too hard to conceive of a situation where a known dishonest and unethical Dr. may also have been dishonest to the parents about what he was doing.
If the charges are true, there’s no evidence to suggest the parents would hold any different opinions of Wakefield.
Many of the charges have nothing to do with his contact with clients or their parents, and of the ones that do involve client contact there’s nothing to suggest that the parents would be sufficiently knowledgable about the background issues or about the clinical issues to be able to recognise the problems with Wakefields behaviour, even assuming the knew the full extent of it. Most of the parental testimony that I’ve seen doesn’t even show any recognition of what the actual charges are, much less adresses them.
Parents can and do agree to all sorts of things. The malleability of parents is one of the reasons why ethics rules exist in the first place.
If they knew about the full extent of his behaviour and still agreed with it, that doesn’t get Wakefield off the hook – it tells you more about the parents than you should be comfortable knowing.
“As I said before, the parents’ opinions do not really matter”. – Todd W.
Thankyou.
@Dale
Way to selectively quote mine. The full quote is (emphasis added):
The following update contains the most complete explanation of the cause and effect of childhood vaccinations MMR and autism in children and the Big Lie hatchet job being carried out against Dr. Andrew J. Wakefield:
Materialist Analysis of Dietary Supplements
The Obama Regime Uses the Pretext of Health Care âReformâ to
Escalate Economic War Against the American People by Taxing the
Working Class and Turning ALL Healthcare Over to the Insurance Companies
And HMOs Rather than Instituting a Veterans Administration-Type or MedicareâType
Socialized Medicine and Escalates the Campaign to Ban Dietary Supplements!
Obama Proposed a Bush-Privatization of the Veterans
Administration within 2 Months of Taking Office!
Dietary supplements are part healthcare and must be considered in context of what the capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires is doing to healthcare and why. The starting point of this analysis is the capitalistsâ escalated attack against the masses under the Obama Regime. Because of the fact that the VA is an example of socialized medicine it was initially partially de-funded by the Bush Regime and more than 20 VA hospitals were threatened with closure! Obamaâs claimed âsupportâ for the VA is a sham and a Big Lie starting with an immediate attempt announced on March 16, 2009 to begin to privatize the Veterans Administration (!) less than two months of taking office! The Obama/Bush Regime attempted to authorize the Department of Veterans Affairs to force veterans to begin to partially pay for treating war-related injuries and other medical conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, that are war-related using private insurance companies! The pretext was supposedly to âsaveâ the VA about $530 million a year!
The overhead of the Veterans Administration Hospitals is less than 5% and the overhead for Medicare is only 2%, while the overhead of the parasite HMO/private insurance plans is 30% or more, which forms the basis for their profits along with their stock price and the entirely illegal practice of âhigh frequency tradingâ AKA âFlash Tradingâ! There is NO money whatsoever âsavedâ by privatizing the Veterans Administration or Medicare. Just the opposite! The Obama regime is simply maneuvering to assist the private health insurers to increase their parasitizing off the misery, illness and disease of the American people and help to reduce the population of the United States! Incidentally, Veterans are already charged a privatized co-payment for non-war acquired medical conditions in order to help out the HMO parasites! Before proceeding it is crucial to define and explain the Big Lie Technique which is used on virtually all topics: There are 2 parts to the Big Lie: 1.) The first part of the Big Lie is that the lie must be BIG, because most people only tell little lies and are entirely unprepared for a Big Lie. 2.) The second part of the Big Lie Technique is to repeat the lie over and over again from every media source including textbooks and films until it is accepted as truth or accepted at least as partly true, when it is most invariably entirely false. In addition, lies may be lies of commission or crucial lies of omission. Both are unacceptable. The MEDIA, including the medical and science media is simply a privatized arm of the U.S. âintelligence agency,â an actual army of legions of professional liars in every area of politics and academic discipline and includes even so-called âcomediansâ working in service to the capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires. The U.S. media is very similar to Blackwater, Dyncorp, Custer Battles and Triple Canopy, etc. the armed military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, except that the media has always been privatized.
Obama was immediately opposed on his Bush-privatization scheme by all veterans groups, which finally forced the new Veterans Affairs Secretary/Obama puppet Gen. Eric Shinseki to reverse his initial support for the Obama privatization plan! Previously the capitalists were able to deceive the masses domestically by throwing out a few crumbs and scraps, while the overwhelming bulk of their programs in the last several decades were deliberately designed to directly attack the lives and living standard of the majority of the American people. On June 24, 2009 after widespread criticism and increasing awareness among veterans that Obama was giving them the same treatment doled out under Bush the Congress passed legislation approving the budget for the Veteranâs Administration one year in advance to prevent the delays which had occurred for 19 of the last 22 years! Those delays combined with cutbacks were deliberately designed to cause cancellation or postponement of programs, not enough equipment, fewer doctors, longer waiting times and restricted access to healthcare for veterans causing rationing of healthcare in order to falsely discredit the Veterans Administration healthcare because it is SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!
Remember that the words âreformâ and âoverhaulâ under capitalism are simply codewords for attack on the Working Class and the Poor. The capitalists have now decided to escalate their attacks on the masses and have switched their gears to EXTERMINATE a significant percentage workers made âredundant,â under Globalism as well as a significant percentage of the general population. In fact the so-called âX-Generationâ has been given that name as the private joke of the capitalists, with the X designating extermination! That is the meaning of the X-Generation! Globalism has rendered millions of workers redundantâno longer necessary under capitalismâand the present Economic Crisis/Second Great Depression has provided the ideal point for the U.S.-led World Capitalist Dictatorship to reduce their populations and the population of the entire world! The capitalists are now trumpeting their fraudulent plans for âuniversal health care.â This is all a deception meant to cover their primary program of population reduction. The capitalists have based the Obama Healthcare âOverhaulâ on the present criminal parasite HMO insurance based health plans rather than the comparatively high quality system used by the U.S. Veterans Administration (VA), a form of socialized medicine, which is anathema to the capitalist dictatorship and their current puppet Obama. Under Socialism there is no need to âbuyâ health insurance from a parasite insurance industry. Free healthcare is universal, free and automatic just like in Cuba today, or as it was in the USSR before Gorbachevâs surrender to the threat of a nuclear war in response to the Full Court Press Nuclear Arms Race initiated by the U.S. in the 1980âs. (The so-called âcollapse of the Soviet Union or of Socialism or Communismâ is a textbook example of the Big Lie!) This is one more reason why we need a Socialist Revolution in the United States!
Coenzyme Q10 Doubles Life Span in Experimental Animals
After the capitalists exhaust their efforts to turn all medical care over to the insurance companies, they plan to escalate their ongoing false propaganda campaign against Dietary Supplements (see below) to a full court press targeting especially megadoses of antioxidants and herbal supplements. One nutrient mentioned more extensively below, Coenzyme Q10, is documented to double the mean life expectancy of experimental animals. The capitalist dictatorship tries to counter massive public support for dietary supplements by repeating the Big Lie: âWe get all the vitamins we need in a well balanced diet.â Completely omitting the studies by Emile Bliznakov on Coenzyme Q10 and longevity in laboratory animals (see below), the U.S. capitalist dictatorship also relentlessly pushes the Big Lie that âcaloric restriction is the only intervention which can increase life span up to 30% in laboratory animals.â (See CBS Sixty Minutes.) Side effects of caloric restriction in humans include greatly reduced energy and loss of sex drive and sometimes hair loss and most certainly does NOT double life expectancy.
Authors of Coenzyme Q10 Longevity Study Targeted!
It is a fact that no diet of any kind or lack of diet will double lifespan! The activity level of the oldest animals in the Coenzyme Q10 longevity study was reportedly equal to that of the youngest! This is totally covered up! See below. Covered up also is the fact that the 2 Principal Investigators on Coenzyme Q10 have been targeted. Karl Folkers, who first synthesized Coenzyme Q10 and the former Chairman of the yearly International Symposium on the BioMedical and Clinical Aspects of Coenzyme Q10 was apparently murdered on his return from Sweden in 1997 after chairing the most recent conference. His colleague Emile A. Bliznakov, M.D., the author of the highly suppressed book âMiracle Nutrient Coenzyme Q10,â who has sent this writer documentation that he is being paid off not to write a second edition (!), is in hiding in Pompano Beach, Florida. Karl Folkers was 91 years old but he sounded strong and as healthy as a horse when this writer spoke to him just before he left to chair that 1997 conference! Folkers told this writer he was taking a daily dose of 200 mg of CoQ10. No cause of death was given, which is totally unprecedented given the fact that he was the point man for CoQ10 and longevity, He was undoubtedly given a CIA âheart attack.â
This was also the fate of a significant percentage of eyewitnesses to the John Kennedy Assassination in Dealey Plaza, eighteen of whom were dead within 3 years. As a notation at the end of the 1973 Film âExecutive Actionâ stated: âIn the three years after the murders of John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald eighteen material witnesses died, 6 by gunfire, 3 by motor accidents, 2 by suicide, 1 by a cut throat, 1 by a karate chop to the neck, 3 by heart attacks, 2 from natural causes. An actuary engaged by the London Sunday Times (Lloyds of London) concluded: On November 22, 1963, the odds of all those witnesses being dead by Feb. 1967 are one hundred thousand trillion to one.â The CIA heart attack is also described in the movie âThe Parallax View.â Assassination is all part of routine U.S. capitalist âstatecraft,â which is carried out by the facetiously designated so-called âWet Section.â (Blood!) So very funny!
The Capitalists Intend to try to Use Obama and the Democratic Majority in Congress to Run a
Full Court Press to Try to Outlaw the Majority of Dietary Supplements, Especially Megadosing
Of Antioxidants Because Antioxidants Have Been Demonstrated in Hundreds of Carefully
Controlled Scientific Studies Over Decades to be Beneficial in Cancer, Heart Disease and to
Extend Human Lifespan by up to 30% or more! Coenzyme Q10 has been found to Double Life
Span in Experimental Animals with Activity Level of the Oldest Animals equal to the Youngest!
Using their false guise as âthe friend of the peopleâ and the âpeoplesâ protector,â the capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires also intends to use the Surgeon General to front the false propaganda campaign attacking dietary supplements and the Democratic control of Congress to try to abolish the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, which has allowed the U.S. masses to extend their life span and quality of life through taking dietary supplements. In addition to waging both economic and biological warfare against the masses in order to reduce the population by bringing people to an earlier death (see below), the capitalists intend to implement the Codex Alimentarius, a United Nations protocol adopted by many countries including the United States and all countries of the European Union, which abolishes in some cases and severely restricts in others the right of people to take herbs and dietary supplements, especially megadoses of antioxidants, which have shown to be beneficial in cancer, heart disease and to extend lifespan of experimental animals up to 40%. As mentioned above, Coenzyme Q10, is documented to double the mean life expectancy of experimental animals, with the activity level of the oldest animals equal to that of the youngest. (Coenzyme Q, the Immune System and Aging by Emil G. Bliznakov, 1981 Elsevier/North Holland Biomedical Press.) Coenzyme Q10 is found in all cells of the body; low amounts are associated with aging and disease states of bioenergetics from congestive heart failure (CHF) to several types of cancer. Hundreds of scientific papers are deliberately hidden by publishing them all together in such totally obscure journals such as the Clinical Investigator and Molecular Aspects of Medicine, but only rarely in mainstream medical journals. Both CHF and metastatic breast cancer in women, e.g., are completely reversed with megadoses of CoQ10! This is covered up and downplayed even by the dietary supplement industry because after any ban on antioxidants, etc. they want to sell a lot more than just CoQ10! (See below.)
The Codex Alimentarius Bans Dietary Supplements!
The so-called World Trade Organization (WTO) has adopted the Codex Alimentarius and in 2004 abolished virtually all dietary supplements in the Europe Union (EU) through the European Food Supplement Directive, although it is still supposedly being fought in the courts primarily by fake âoppositionâ in those EU countries by pathetically going through the motions. WTO regulations specify that no member country can have a law which is in conflict with a WTO regulation, and on that basis and the recently concocted false claims based on entirely fraudulent âstudiesâ and âreportsâ (see below) the United States government intends to try to abolish the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), approved by Congress under unanimous popular demand and to arbitrarily ban and/or severely restrict virtually all dietary supplements in the United States under Obama! In the United States the Democrats were initially chosen by the capitalists to try to overturn the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 because their constituency trusts the Democrats slightly more than the Republicans due to the Democratsâ previous historical support of the New Deal and Social Programs, support which polls document has largely eroded and which exists now largely for demagogic purposes of deceiving the masses as Obamaâs daily demagogy demonstrates. In 2003 the Democrats introduced the so-called Dietary Supplement “Safety” Act (S.722), the purpose of which is to essentially act as a first step to gradually render void the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA).
S.722 defined âadverse dietary supplement experienceâ as âan adverse event that is associated with the use of a dietary supplement in a human, without regard to whether the event is known to be causally related to the dietary supplement.â (!) This employs clumsy false post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning and was done in order to provide the basis for the false claims later reported by the FDA American Association of Poison Control Centers in the New York Times (see below). Because of the widespread public protest against that pending legislation and in order for the FDA to build up a âdata baseâ of false reports (see below) actual passage of that legislation was put on hold until the Democrats again took control of Congress. After the Democratsâ âvictoryâ in the 2006 Midterm elections, the Democrats, in order to insure âbipartisan supportâ and easier passage by the Fascist Usurper Bush (see further below), chose Republicans Peter Roskam (R-IL) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), backed by Durbin and McCain, to start the ball rolling by introducing bills (H.R. 1249 and S.762) in order to try falsely classify DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) as an anabolic steroid and controlled substance, which according to definition in the U.S governmentâs own Medline Medical Dictionary, it is neither.
In January 2007 the FDA American Association of Poison Control Centers released a completely fraudulent Big Lie so-called ânational data baseâ entirely constructed of whole cloth, which falsely claimed â1.6 million adverse reactions (!), 125,595 poisonings (!) and 230 deaths (!) due to dietary supplements from 1983 to 2004â (!) (See: The New York Times âScience Sectionâ, January 16, 2007 and CBS Nightly News with Miss Goody Two Shoes, Katie Couric, January 15, 2007), when the reality is that there have been NO DEATHS WHATSOEVER directly caused by taking dietary supplements alone!
Only on February 2, 2007, 2 weeks later, did an obscure âCorrectionâ appear on the bottom of page F6 of the New York Times so-called âScience Section,â stating that the previously reported number of âpoisoningsâ referred only to reported âexposuresâ (!) and that the âNational Poison Control database âdoes not even have a category for poisoning incidents!â âExposures!â (!) That sounds almost as bad! The database then claims that all it does report is the category of âexposures and adverse reactions for various dietary supplements, which are not defined nor verified as being caused by dietary supplements!â This is the actual contrived, fraudulent âdefinitionâ in the S. 722 legislation! (See above.) The entire incidentâreleasing the initial Big Lie report designed as a provocation to terrorize and confuse the maximum number of people and raise the fear level of dietary supplements, which is then followed by the obscure retraction (âcorrectionâ) which few people see, is a standard media technique used to brainwash the masses used in all areas of politics in addition to dietary supplements.
Actually the lone death due to vitamins intake up to 1994 was due to Vitamin A due to eating Polar Bear liverânot vitamin pills! In 2003 it was covered up by the media but later blipped briefly that the death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Belcher, which was supposedly due to taking the herb Ephedra was actually due to heat stroke when he collapsed with a core temperature of 106 degrees Fahrenheit in Florida. Belcher had a previous history of heat stroke in high school, which heightens the probability of reoccurrences; he was overweight, unfit and unacclimatized. He also had pre-existing hypertension and liver problems and had a family history of sudden death from exercise (his half-brother died at age 20 of an aneurysm while playing baseball). He had not eaten solid food for 2 days to try to lose weight and took 3 capsules every morning, which could not possibly have raised the core body temperature to 106. This fraud is all the U.S. government could come up with up until 2003 to attack dietary supplements as âdangerousâ and now we are asked to suspend disbelief in yet another Big Lie with their false claim of 230 deaths due to dietary supplements! The truth is that dietary supplements alone have caused NO deaths whatsoever!
Such information on claimed âdeathsâ due to âdietary supplement poisonâ would have been released on the spot whenever they occurred if they had actually occurred, but they did not occur, and the U.S. government knows that they did not occur. There is a zero mortality rate for dietary supplement versus prescription drugs which kill over 100,000 people in the U.S. alone every year due to known âside effects.â But the Codex Alimentarius is NOT really being implemented merely for drug company profits or control, but for political/demographic objectives to bring an increasing number of the population to an earlier death by depriving the masses of dietary supplements which keep them healthy and extend their life in that part of the world where there is no overt starvation, but where a significant percentage of people are forced to eat McDonalds and other fast food garbage. On the other hand no diet alone, restriction diet or otherwise, will double lifespan. (See further below.) Media focus on caloric restriction diets is for the sole purpose of diverting attention from megadoses of antioxidants, especially Coenzyme Q10, combined with interval training and no meat in the diet and the daily inclusion of oatmeal, an approach which can indeed double lifespan.
The legislation known as the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) attracted the greatest citizen/constituent input of any legislation for that year, and since. That input by the U.S. population overwhelmingly supported the right of Americans to take dietary supplements without undue interference and regulation of the FDA and or control by the pharmaceutical industry or any other government agency. Prior to and in support of passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act in 1994 this writer, a physician and medical researcher by training, sent all 535 Members of Congress a copy of a review paper he authored on antioxidants based on the review of over 330 papers and abstracts. Library research by this writer revealed 2 bodies of literature in one! The overwhelming majority of research papers for over 50 years have supported the use of antioxidants in heart disease, cancer and longevity. However, a tiny number of papers all written by the same small group of individuals ruthlessly attacked antioxidants. The conclusions asserted in this latter group of papers were clearly unsupported, faulty on numerous bases, unquestionably biased and false and deliberately fraudulent. Vitamin C and Vitamin E, were demonstrated in the overwhelming majority of papers to be able to increase mean life span by up to 30% or more and Coenzyme Q-10 doubled mean life expectancy in one paper, as mentioned above This writer has been taking megadoses of antioxidants ever since he has been 14 years old and today looks over 20 years younger than his 68 years. Based on his findings and comprehensive review of the literature on antioxidants and his own personal experience in 2004 this writer requested and was effectively denied the right to appear before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Commerce Committee and give testimony concerning that legislation sponsored by Senators Durbin, McCain, Clinton, Harkin, Feinstein and Schumer.
Campaign Uses Multiple Fraudulent âStudiesâ
To Falsely Discredit Dietary Supplements!
In order to provide a false pretext and provide a fraudulent momentum to try to ban megadoses of antioxidants and restrict the use of DHEA and herbs and other dietary supplements taken by millions of people the capitalists have carried out in the last several years a series of large heavily hyped but mostly deliberately uncontrolled deliberately fraudulent studies on older populations with multiple organ disease, which did not use properly significant amounts of antioxidants and other dietary supplements. These studies heavily-hyped by the capitalist media were deliberately contrived Fraudsânot âflawedâ or âDangerously Dumbâ as falsely claimed by the loyal, fake opportunist so-called âopposition,â such as Julian Whitaker, Gary Null, Stephen Sinatra, William Falloon, etc. terms which are deliberately designed to attribute good faith to those medical Fascists who carry out such deliberately fraudulent extremely large and virtually totally uncontrolled Studies.â These fake opposition figures from Julian Whitaker to Gary Null to the obsequious William Falloon of âLife Extension,â who have written well-documented articles and even books supporting the use of dietary supplements, are all part of the capitalist system and all want their piece of the pie if the U.S. government actually succeeds in banning dietary supplements. These scoundrels who go through the motions of âoppositionâ are just as guilty as the politicians and drug companies, who want to ban dietary supplements. Gary Null, Julian Whitaker, Stephen Sinatra and William Falloon are millionaire capitalists themselves or their front men and calculate that they will still be able to sell whatever useless items the capitalists still might permit to be sold if the government succeeds in banning megadose antioxidants and other dietary supplements!
Despite the fact that the dietary supplement industry has deliberately omitted all mention of the primary political/demographic (population reduction) motive for the capitalistsâ attacks on dietary supplements, Life Extension and Health and Healing have published excellent referenced refutations of the various fraudulent âstudiesâ attacking antioxidants and other dietary supplements. For example see: http://www.lef.org/newsletter/2007/2007_04_27.htm?source=eNewsLetter2007Wk17-2&key=archive. The capitalists are attempting to set the stage to ban dietary supplements one after the other on the bases of these contrived, clumsily fraudulent so-called âstudies,â which have attacked virtually every major dietary supplement with the Big Lie conclusion that they are either useless or even dangerous! See above! See also the ridiculous Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2006, full front page/2 page broadside in the B Section falsely labeled âThe Case Against Vitamins.â Even more absurd was the fraudulent claim that âLow-Fat Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks Study Finds,â front page New York Times, February 8, 2006, where the studies participants maintained a 29% fat level in their diet while controls maintained a statistically insignificant 35%. (!) Talk about fraudulent studies!
The Escalating Drumbeat to Falsely Discredit Dietary Supplements
Continues With the Attack on the So-Called âDirty Dozen!â
On August 2, 2010 the capitalist dictatorship launched a massive high profile media attack against 10 different herbs plus Germanium and Colloidal Silver. The truth is that herbs are rarely-to-never taken without knowledge of their effects gained either from books on herbology or alternative medical practitioners. In addition, herbs are taken in small amounts and despite the claims of morbidity from taking the herbs on the âFDAâs âdirty dozenâ list there have been no deaths. On the other hand, as mentioned below prescription drugs actually kill over 100,000 people each year in the United States alone!! Yet the FDA continues to grants approval to these poisons masquerading as medicines. In the TV advertisements the drug companies are now required to list the side effects of their phony death dealing so-called âmedicines.â Those who read what appears there on a backdrop of supposedly contented patients (tra la la!) should be rightly scared half to death.
The truth is that the herbs improve the health of a vast number of people without the side effects of prescription drugs which are far worse and which often include suicide and other fatal side effects. GERMANIUM, for example, extends lifespan and does for a fact strengthen the immune system. COLLOIDAL SILVER is effective for a wide range of ailments. Naturally the FDA wants to ban it. KAVA is an excellent anti-anxiety and sleep medication (with no fatal side effects!) But already KAVA is banned in Europe is due to the implementation of the Codex Alimentarius there. Europe also bans megadoses of antioxidants, etc! (See above.) YOHIMBE is an excellent aphrodisiac but it as a competitor of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. The side effects of Yohimbe are inconsequential in comparison to the side effect of the prescription drugs which can cause PRIAPISM, an erection lasting more than 4 hours which is due to clotting of blood in the penis. This can in result in permanent loss of function and in rare cases necessitate AMPUTATION!!!! Priapsim does not occur with Yohimbe. The capitalists are in control and have simply banned the competition based on a false pretext. The capitalist dictatorship wants to reduce the overall population in the United States and naturally wants to eliminate anything such as dietary supplements which genuinely makes people healthier or live longer. Reducing the population was a primary objective of the so-called Obama Healthcare Overhaul which cut over $500 billion from Medicare/Medicaid, turns all of healthcare over to the insurance industry and does not take full effect until after 3 years when most of those who passed it, against 58% opposition of the American people (!), will be long gone. Note that Medicare took effect THE VERY NEXT DAY after it was passed by Congress because it genuinely improved peoplesâ health! âObamacareâ is designed to increase healthcare rationing to such a degree that people have their healthcare requests for tests and treatment denied so often and to such a degree that eventually they do not even attempt to see a physician when they are sick, but wait until they are at or near death. (See above.)
The attack on the so-called âdirty dozenâ health supplements means that the capitalist dictatorship is intensifying the attack on dietary supplements and megadose antioxidants and may decide to use EXECUTIVE DECREE to enforce compliance with the Codex Alimentarius as in Europe where there was no DSHEA. The Obama regime has already used Executive Decree to permanently end the Social Security Cost of Living Allowance in order to abolish the FUNCTION of Social Security, which is to keep older people alive. Note that a Federal District Court easily overturned Obamaâs stem cell Executive Decree which supposedly opened up more stem cell lines for research. News reports made no mention that the ruling would even be appealed.
Although the analysis of dietary supplements might appear to be a small issue in comparison with the other matters analyzed here it is significant in that it demonstrates that capitalism is fundamentally based on war and mass murder and crime at every level and will leave no stone unturned in expression of that dialectic and furthermore demonstrates that only a Socialist Revolution in the United States can permanently end such threats to peoplesâ security at every level and guarantee a world with a sustainable future unlike capitalism, which guarantees a world with no future. Under capitalism all news is bad news. Today we live in a bureaucratic, military police state, a step short of Fascism known as Rule by Decree, which is a form of Bonapartism, as in Napoleon Bonaparte. Capitalism is presently in its Final Stage of Permanent War and State Terrorism. Today 95% of New Yorkers and presumably the majority of Americans agree given the choice that we need a new system based on human need not private profit. That means Socialism, and because of the one-way dynamic (development sequence) of capitalism, which is entirely independent of the wills of the capitalists and politicians themselves and which leads to Fascism, barbarism and finally the end of civilization, capitalism cannot be turned into Socialism. This means that capitalism cannot be reformed. Therefore we need a Socialist Revolution in the United States. The capitalist dictatorship rules by a combination of force and deception. Therefore, a Socialist Revolution can only be carried out by first disarming the capitalists and simultaneously exposing their primary weapon of deception, the Presidential âelectionsâ and all elections by extension under capitalism, all of which perpetuate the number one Big Lie of capitalism, namely that capitalism can be reformed, which it cannot because of the above-described dynamic. Disarming the capitalists is thus the precondition for carrying out a Socialist Revolution in the United States as it was in Russia in 1917! Disarming the capitalist dictatorship is accomplished by calling for MUTINY in all U.S. armed forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, etc (the U.S. has a military presence in 130 countries) as in Vietnam, the real reason and the ONLY reason the Vietnam War ended in 1975! Because it was not led by Communists the immediate evacuation of all U.S. forces from Vietnam in days and hours quelled that mutiny.. Today the call for MUTINY must come from stateside and can only take place if it is organized by a genuine Communist Party, which must be built. Organization is dealt with elsewhere.
Vaccinosis
In the background is also the matter of Vaccinosis. Vaccinosis is a clinical syndrome which results from multiple, repeated, bivalent or polyvalent vaccination and is expressed in 2 ways: 1.) Cancer, where the immune system is weakened, and 2.) Autoimmune Disease, where the immune system is damaged in a way that causes the body to attack itself. An example of the latter includes autism in children. While vaccination against Polio and tetanus, along with Rubella vaccination especially for girls so they do not develop German measles during pregnancy, all may be justified and have not been generally associated with an increased amount of autoimmune disease or cancer, Autism in children is indeed associated with the increased vaccination of children for childhood diseases (especially with polyvalent vaccines) including mumps, measles, chickenpox and whooping cough, which heretofore always provided immunity for life in an era when there was virtually no autism! And the increased amount of autism has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with âprevious failure to diagnose or previous misdiagnosisâ of that condition, which is a deliberately concocted pretext by the perpetrators of the increased rate of autism: the capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires and the pharmaceutical companies. That is clearly the case today with multiple and polyvalent vaccinations of children and everyone else for every conceivable organism except the organisms which cause pandemics which the U.S.-led Biowarfare criminals want to employ to reduce specific populations (AIDS) or the population in general. The H1N1 âSwine Fluâ and the H5N1 Bird Flu are examples. The coming next wave of the so-called âH1N1 Swine Flu,â will probably be a variant of the 1918 Spanish Flu Virus and has nothing to do with swine except for those employed by the U.S. Department of Biowarfare. In the fall of 2009 the capitalist dictatorship decided to put a temporary hold on this second wave of Swine Flu due to the fact that U.S. masses which are targeted for large-scale population reduction (extermination), showed that they did not even trust their dictatorship enough to be vaccinated against the common flu, much less the Swine Flu. The fact that the overwhelming majority of parents now understand that the so-called âchildhood vaccinationsâ for Mumps, Measles and Rubella are the direct cause of autism in genetically susceptible individuals also has helped build a healthy fear of unneeded vaccinations! So, it was decided to try to accomplish the population reduction by using the Economic Crisis/Depression as a weapon to wage economic warfare against the masses to bring down the living standard and reduce the population in accordance with the requirements of Globalismâcompetition worldwide among the capitalists for the lowest salaried workers. They accomplish this through false claims of ârequired austerity to correct the budget deficit,â rather than simply instituting a Progressive Tax Structure and using the standard capitalist solution of Keynesian Deficit Spending to create jobs which stimulate DEMAND, the engine of the economy. The capitalists are doing everything possible to reduce demand in the economy by laying off and freezing salaries of government workers and supposedly relying on âSupply-Side/Bush-Obama Tax-Cut Economics,â explained by Ronald Reaganâs economic czar David Stockman as a sham with the objective of diverting money from social spending. In addition, U.S. Taxes are collected on only the first $106,800 of income rather than taxing ALL income with no exceptions. The top tax rate for millionaires and billionaires is only 27.9% but they do not even pay that. They pay the capital gains tax rate of 15% and sixty-six percent of U.S. businesses pay no tax at all. Theyâve drained us dry!
The Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus with Slight Adaptations
Is On Hand Ready to be Released as the âSecond Wave of the Swine Flu!â
The virus which caused the H1N1 1918 Spanish Flu has recently been dug up, sequenced, restructured and tested and found to be suitably virulent for reduction of the so-called âpopulation demographic.â See Terrence M. Tumpey et al, in the October 7, 2005 Science: “Characterization of the Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus.” The capitalist dictatorship of millionaires and billionaires has decided to temporarily delay âthe next waveâ of Swine Flu and have also decided to put âon holdâ a world Avian Flu (Bird Fly) Pandemic at the present time, preferring for now to employ economic war alone to bring the masses to an earlier death while denying that as the obvious motive for their actions! But those population reduction options are still on the table for the future! In the meantime the U.S. government deliberately continues with these life-shortening multiple and polyvalent vaccinations for the very same reason that they are have designed a World Pandemic Swine Flu Virusâto bring people to an earlier deathâto âsolve the overpopulation demographicâ in the capitalist way. See Materialist Analysis of the Obama Regime, Part I. It should be noted that routine Smallpox vaccination was halted in 1972 when it was claimed the risks of complications from the vaccination outweighed the threat of the disease. In 1982 Anthony Fauci, head of NIAID and Director of the U.S. Department of Biological Warfare, and presently the worldâs Number One Biowarfare Criminal, who has also insinuated himself as the Editor of Harrisonâs Textbook of Internal Medicine in order to censor all articles on basic medical practice. At this time he is still editor. Fauci also blocked development of the Panicalli/Paoletti Recombinant Vaccine for genital herpes in 1981 under the false pretext that the risk of meningitis from the vaccinia-based recombinant vaccine was âso greatâ its use was contraindicated. But the vaccinia-based Smallpox vaccine had been used previously to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people worldwide for generations and eliminated the scourge of Smallpox with very few side effects and very few fatalities.
The U.S. government has meanwhile gone to great lengths to prevent development of an effective AIDS vaccine, first permitting work to be carried out only on vaccines which use the AIDS envelope lipoprotein. The U.S. government (NIH) refuses any funding of an AIDS vaccine which utilizes the viral RNA itself under the false pretext that the vaccine might infect people. This is despite the fact that deleting the SOR gene makes it impossible for the virus to replicate and would permit use of virtually all of the AIDS RNA to be used in the vaccine, minus the SOR gene. This would make an extremely effective recombinant vaccine but BioWarfare Criminal Anthony Fauci, & Co. and the U.S. Department of Biological Warfare do not permit that to occur. The field of AIDS vaccine âresearchâ has been deliberately misled by various red herrings and presently degenerated into multiple dead ends such as the most recent studies of ânew neutralizing monoclonal antibodies.â Previously the âintelligence communityâ has sidetracked research with the V520 vaccine which contained a weakened adenovirus (an adenovirusâa cold virusâseriously!?) which supposedly âproduced T cells to kill HIV-infected cells.â Right! That âvaccineâ and others like it were a ridiculous joke and resulted in total failure but it was good for a several year delay!
To take it to the ridiculous, on February 22, 2006 the falsely named Center for Disease Control and Preventionâs immunization advisory committee has now recommended (by unanimous voteâno disagreement is tolerated in this club!) that all children between 6 months and 5 years old should be vaccinated against influenza. That means every child in this age group may be compelled to undergo flu vaccination every year! Look for an enormous increase in autoimmune disease and cancer in those who receive these vaccinations, which of course are to be added to the other vaccinations they are now sometimes forced to receive as mentioned above! See below. The claim that 153 children in this age group died in 2003-2004 from flu is a false argument for vaccination when they do not describe the circumstances of those deaths and other complicating factors, which could have contributed to the fatal outcomes, and when they know that a far higher percentage will go on to develop life-shortening autoimmune disease and cancer as current statistics also reveal! Which happens to be the population reduction objective of the ever-hardening capitalist dictatorship! Recall that the so-called Center for Disease Control is where the capitalists brag in the March 23, 2005 Wall Street Journal that they have created their human-to-human strain of the H5N1 Bird Flu virus and the Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Flu virus.
In a Clumsy Act of Desperation to Try to Intimidate the Masses to Accept Vaccination
The Capitalist Dictatorship has Launched a Full-Scale Big Lie Media Attack Against the
First Researcher who Documented that Munps Measles and Rubella Vaccines Directly
Cause Autism in Genetically Susceptible Children! Methinks They Protest Too Much!
Methinks They Protest Too Much! The epidemic of autism began in the late 1980âs and by 2007 Autism was found in every 150 children (!), according to ABC News, November 1, 2007. The New York Times, December 18, 2009 reported that figure has now increased: approximately so that one in a hundred 8-year old children now have autism, Aspergerâs Syndrome or pervasive developmental disorder, otherwise known as autism spectrum disorders (ASD)! The most bizarre response of the capitalist dictatorship to âbar Dr. Andrew J. Wakefield from practicing medicine in Britain,â (Associated Press, May 24, 2010) and the full-scale media attack launched through the discredited British Medical Journal (January 6, 2011), with a FOX journalist backed by the full BMJ editorial board absurdly alleging âelaborate fraudâ simply reemphasizes Wakefieldâs importance and the widespread recognition that the mumps, measles and Rubella vaccinations of children ARE INDEED THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF AUTISM! In February 2009, 12 years (!) after its publication, the capitalist dictatorship and the pharmaceutical companies finally forced the retraction of Andrew Wakefieldâs 1998 article in the British medical journal, The Lancet. That article first conclusively documented multiple developmental disorders in children directly associated with receiving primarily polyvalent vaccination for mumps, measles and rubella, including: autism 75%, disintegrative psychosis (one child), possible postviral or vaccinal encephalitis (two children) plus all had âintestinal abnormalities ranging from lymphoid nodular hyperplasia similar to that found in Crohnâs Disease (an autoimmune disease) to aphthoid ulcertion.â Note: One child had received monovalent measles vaccine. [Citation: âIleal-lymphoid hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children,â The Lancet, Vol. 351, Issue 9103, February 28, 1998.] Wakefieldâs only error was in not waiting a wee bit longer and publishing a study which included a much, much larger number of patients. Today there are 1.8 million children with autism in the United States and a comparable number as a percentage of the population in the UK and wherever the MMR vaccines are administered, with an annual increase of 20% in new cases in the US! Dr. Wakefield has published over 140 original scientific articles, book chapters, and invited scientific commentaries. His website, http://www.callous-disregard.com, lists multiple much larger epidemiological studies which found the very same result: cause and effect with the MMR trivalent vaccine and autism in children and demonstrate that Dr. Wakefieldâs results are 100% ârepeatableâ in spades! His website also lists 48 organizations dedicated to getting the truth out about autism with their contact information.
The smear campaign against Wakefield is designed to make it appear as if he is the only person who has made the direct cause and effect association between childhood vaccinations in children and the sudden appearance of autism in children, when in fact that is the opinion of the overwhelming majority of those individuals who have objectively examined the issue, as well as the finding of multiple other clinical research studies which found the very same result. See above. The truth is that the parents of the children who have been handed a diagnosis of autism along with the MMR trivalent vaccination of their children made the association without any assistance whatsoever from Dr. Andrew Wakefield whose paper and others merely confirmed their already firm beliefs! The medical establishment is in complete unethical alliance with the drug companies and the capitalist dictatorship itself obviously, as documented above and herein and of course lines up against Wakefield and the parents and their children! The false claim that childhood vaccinations such as MMR do NOT cause autism is another textbook example of the Big Lie Technique and readers should review the explanation of the Big Lie Technique provided above. Note that it probably did not take too hefty a bribe or too many threats or harassment, all of which were indubitably utilized to cause 10 of the original 13 authors of Wakefieldâs original paper to now âdenounceâ both that paper and Wakefield. Note: that all 13 authors of that paper fully supported the paper, its methods and its conclusions at publication! Also note that there was no âconflict of interestâ because Wakefield declared to the Lancet that he was employed by the group of parents who sued vaccine manufacturers for alleged vaccine damage of their children. The claim by Richard Horton, then editor of the Lancet, that he had ânot been toldâ has as much truth as all of the other false allegations and Big Lies being presently lodged against Wakefield, who has the credibility in this issue. Not his accusers! In his book, Callous Disregard, Wakefield provides full details of the exhaustive disclosures that he made according to the disclosure policy at that time. By May 2009 the British government began using the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exam to brainwash teenage kids by making the Big Lies about autism and Wakefield the âcorrectâ answers on the test!
The capitalistsâ so-called âintelligence communityâ believes that it may be able to intimidate parents to accept the TOTALLY UNNECESSARY VACCINATIONS of their children by âtaking downâ Dr. Andrew Wakefield. But that is NOT going to happen! No matter what they do they can NOT destroy Wakefieldâs credibility! The capitalistsâ so-called âintelligence communityâ has pulled out all the stops in targeting Dr. Andrew Wakefield, using a Rupert Murdoch (Fox News, NY Post, Wall Street Journal, London Times, etc.) stooge who has been assigned since 2003 to try to discredit Wakefield! The hugely discredited British Medical Journal, January 5, 2011, began the attack by publishing a false but heavily hyped hatchet job on Wakefield by a journalist, which was later synopsized in the New York Times (January 6, 2011), etc. and reported on CNN on January 7, 2011 (Anderson Cooper 360!) and of course Fox News! The capitalists believe that if they can intimidate and brainwash parents to accept the MMR vaccination, then that can be used to try to further intimidate the U.S. masses to get âvaccinatedâ against Swine Flu, or vaccinated for whatever they say whenever they say, which is an important step in getting the masses to accept their own widespread slaughter as part of U.S. Biowarfare operations. The reason for this is that even by using highly infectious and lethal organisms in their Biowarfare epidemics (see above) the U.S. Department of Biological Warfare cannot infect everyone, but âvaccinations,â which themselves often contain the live etiological agent which they are supposedly designed to protect against and or other diseases and potentially can also cause vaccinosis, can reach many more people if the population is thoroughly brainwashed and blindly accepts vaccination. Simultaneously the U.S. Department of Biological Warfare and U.S. pharmaceutical industry, which work closely together and are actually a revolving door, are presently organizing the drug store chains to carry out a âGet a Flu Vaccine Shotâ campaign being carried out e.g. in Walgreens and Duane Reade and right out onto the city streets in a HARD-SELL SCARE CAMPAIGN!
Articles in various medical journals pretend to be concerned about âwhat possibly could be the causeâ of such an increase in autism, but then cite no credible reason and disavow childhood vaccinations as the obvious cause! (Scientists Remain âBaffled by Increase in Autism!) Right, sure! Also, the truth is that the mercury preservatives in vaccines may aggravate autism, but are definitely not the main cause. It is the polyvalent vaccinations themselves. This was proved when the so-called âintelligence communityâ organized groups of parents to insist that it was âthat mercury (alone) in the preservativesâ which caused autism. This is an example of straw man disinformation. When it was easily proved that eliminating the mercury from the vaccines did not decrease the astronomical increase in autism, which has continued, then the whole argument that vaccines cause autism was supposed to collapse âlike a straw man.â But it did not collapse and the focus properly fell on the vaccines themselves not the mercury! Today it is widely recognized that vaccines alone cause autism in children, especially multiple, bivalent and trivalent vaccinations! In another desperate attempt to discredit the truth and reality the capitalist dictatorship is trying to make it appear as if the entire case rests on one person and one research paper, WHICH THEY REFUSE TO REPRINT so that people can not make their own choice. Instead the media prints long screeds and rant of a journalist (!) not a physician or researcher, attacking the original Wakefield paper and the lead author, which are published in the British Medical Journal, January 5, 2011. (!) Oy! This is yet another clumsy attempt to employ the straw man method of trying to falsely discredit obvious cause and effect. Supposedly by attacking Wakefield, the primary author of the first paper, who is a well-known proponent of the association of childhood vaccinations and autism, then the reality of cause and effect will supposedly just disappear and collapse like a straw man! It does not disappear and it will never disappear!
Note that autoimmune disease is also very easy to observe in cats and dogs. The pharmaceutical industry recommends vaccination on a yearly basis usually consisting of a combination trivalent vaccinations for feline distemper (panleukopenia), rhinotracheitis and calicivirus, etc. and most veterinarians sheepishly and unethically comply with this horrible and murderous âadvice.â The majority of cats begin to develop either cancer or autoimmune disease like clockwork. For example, a high percentage of cats begin to develop symptoms of autoimmune disease such as hyperthyroid disease, inflammatory bowel disease, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis or cancer or feline leukemia and die when they are about 11 to13 years old or even before. Dogs and cats should have only ONE such vaccination and no repeats! (Note that monovalent vaccines for cats are virtually impossible to obtain.) And the overwhelming majority of Veterinarians many of whom know about vaccinosis, go along with yearly vaccinations because 1.) yearly combination vaccinations bring in customers, 2) they get paid for treating the diseases caused by vaccinosis (!) and 3.) they are simply unethical and take their lead from the capitalist system itself which is doing the same thing to humans, where the result of increased profits of the pharmaceutical industry parasites and decreased human life span is also the objective, not simply a consequence! The recent February 12, 2009 false âdecisionâ (!) by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. that vaccines donât cause autism is just more cover-up of cause and effect, which has been firmly documented and continues to be documented every day: childhood vaccination is the chief cause of autism in those who are genetically susceptible. A good reference to learn about Vaccinosis is http://www.drpitcairn.com/talks/looking_at_vaccines.html. Pitcairn is the well-known Veterinarian/author who has worked in research and private practice for years. Also check vaccinosis on your search engine.
William H. Depperman, Coordinator
United Front Against Racism
And Capitalism-Imperialism
New York, N.Y. 10003
Revised January 8, 2011