Oh, did you miss that I actually knew the year of the USA version of the MMR being used in the UK? Also, the Urabe mumps strain caused far less meningitis than actual cases of mumps and measles. It is just that the Jeryl Lynn strain is slightly safer, and possibly more effective. I still want to know why a vaccine would start being demonized after thirty years of use!

Also, along the line that the only real difference between the two MMR vaccines is the mumps strain, one cause of autism is congenital rubella syndrome. Since rubella can be implicated in autism as such, why did Wakefield focus on measles and not rubella?

Roger, try linking to the actual paper, not to a blog of a credulous parent, which is a video. Here is Tim Buie’s latest paper: Distinct genetic risk based on association of MET in families with co-occurring autism and gastrointestinal conditions. Hmmmm, it does not seem to have anything to do with measles. Now I see why you decided not to bother with the PubMed link. So why did you say it replicated Wakefield when it clearly did not?

He was also in the group with Mady Hornig that failed to replicate Wakefield’s case studies of twelve children, and with many more children (25), and controls (19), something the lawyer, Richard Barr, failed to provide Wakefield. Perhaps you have heard of it? It is on the Public Library of Science webpage: Lack of association between measles virus vaccine and autism with enteropathy: a case-control study.

If you are going to mention Hannah Poling, get her name right. The most likely reason for a vaccine to have triggered her mitochondrial disorder was an adverse reaction to the chicken pox component of her MMRV vaccination. Chicken pox is not measles.

I have dealt with the media elsewhere. But just to repeat,many sectors of the press have been guilty of uncritically publishing Wakefield’s false claims in the past. And I have called them on it. But without Wakefield they would have had no false claims to publish. The story starts and ends with him. This blog post is about Wakefield lying in a press release.

You have made your point about the media. No one here disputes their role. But you seem to be arguing that their behaviour somehow mitigates Wakefield’s role in the whole affair. Wakefield is not under investigation because the press sensationalized and reported his claims as fact. He is under investigation because of the evidence that he breached research ethics and falsified data.

You do not mention the Hannah Polling case.

Because it’s completely off-topic?

The topic of the post is the intellectual honesty of one Andrew Wakefield. But it appears that some would prefer to change the subject.

You do not mention the Urabe strain complications in the UK prior to 1992 and the possibility that the UK government were aware of the complications prior to the introduction of the Urabe strain.
http://www.foiacentre.com/news-MMR-070305_2.html
You do not mention the Hannah Polling case.
http://www.newscientist.com/ar.....versy.html
The irresponsible journalists and the case of Leo Blair should also be addressed as the Ben Goldacre MMR hoax reference suggests.
However, everyone focuses on Dr Wakefield being struck off – it is much easier.

Here is another one: there was testimony in the American Autism Omnibus trial that was by telephone from the UK. What was being discussed: the media coverage in the UK or the test results that were ignored and included in a paper that was eventually published in the Lancet (and then retracted)?

If you don’t know, just check back in the archives of this blog. If you mention journalists, politicians or any other person who is not the subject of this blog posting, I am just going to have to assume you are a chiropractor.