When someone asks about the Dr. Wakefield, or the GMC hearing, do you talk about the ruling or point people to read it for themselves? Well, according to Mark Blaxill (blogger for SafeMinds), you shouldn’t. In an “opposing view” from USA Today, he stated:
Anyone convinced that Wakefield is the problem should ask a simple question: Can you name a single instance of fraud or misconduct by Wakefield, describe it simply without deferring to the authority of some faceless tribunal and defend the evidence to an informed skeptic?
Just for the record, I am not convinced that Wakefield is *the* problem. There are lots of problems.
That said, I find the fact that Dr. Wakefield didn’t divulge his funding from the Legal Aid Board when directly asked by a U.S. Legislator to be misconduct. (From the congressional record, April 6, 2000)
Mr. Burton. Who funded your study, Dr. Wakefield?
Dr. Wakefield. We did. We have a small charitable contribution, but—
Mr. Burton. A charitable organization did; I see.
Dr. Wakefield. We found it a little difficult to get funding—-
I consider Dr. Wakefield not divulging his patent, which includes a claim for an alternate measles vaccine, during his news conference following the publication of the article in The Lancet to be misconduct.
I did those without even having to lean on all the information at BrianDeer.com, or Mr. Deer’s news articles.
I could have quoted many instances of Dr. Wakefield’s research which were mentioned in the Autism Omnibus Proceedings. A prime example would be Dr. Wakefield publishing claims that measles virus were detected in the guts of autistic kids, even after being told that his detection of measles virus in tissue samples were incorrect by Nicholas Chadwick. But, that wasn’t part of the GMC inquiry.
Mr. Blaxill made these comments in an “Opposing View” statement at USA Today. His opposing view was to the op-ed piece:
Here is an amazing quote by Mr. Blaxill:
Dedicated scientists who simply reported a series of cases combining bowel symptoms, autistic regression and exposure to the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps and rubella) stand accused of fraud and misconduct
Simply reporting? I guess if you throw out all the evidence, as Mr. Blaxill would have you do.
Simply reported? That downplays what happened. It makes it sound like they just found the data lying around and put it into a paper. Does performing lumbar punctures (spinal taps) to take cerebral spinal fluid from disabled children–without any clinical need–fall under the category of “simply reporting”? You can even take out the “without any clinical need” if you want to follow Mr. Blaxill’s call to ignore the GMC ruling.
“Simply reporting”…it sounds like they just looked at a bunch of kids’ records. If some major pharmaceutical house were taking samples from children using very invasive procedures, there would be no question of “simply reporting”.
As long as I am on the subject, Dr. Wakefield and his two colleagues are not “accused” of fraud and misconduct anymore. Most of the charges were “found proved”. Once again, a choice of words made to downplay the situation.
By the way, it is worth comparing Mr. Blaxill’s statement with that of Dr. Wakefield himself:
…I invite anyone to examine the contents of these proceedings and come to their own conclusion
I did. I have.
Left Brain Right Brain 
We don’t need to defer to the authority of the GMC, Andrew Wakefield has not only welcomed it, he’s insisted on it:
** “Serious allegations have been made against me in relation to the provision of clinical care for children with autism and bowel disease, and the reporting of their disease. It has been proposed that my role in this matter should be investigated by the GMC. I not only welcome this, I insist on it and I will be making contact with the GMC personally.” **
– Andrew Wakefield
Source: http://tinyurl.com/yhnpuv6
Since Andrew Wakefield himself insisted on the “authority” of the GMC, let’s go ahead and present their documented findings, and let the readers decide.
Link: http://tinyurl.com/yhqjv43
See pages 44-47.
For those who accept Wakefield’s insistence on the GMC’s authority to investigate, here’s the simple explanation:
Wakefield’s case series claimed to study children who were referred to a pediatric GI department with a specific behavioral and medical history following vaccination with the MMR. In reality, Wakefield’s case series did not study children who were all referred as claimed, or who all actually had the claimed specific behavioral and medical history following vaccination with the MMR.
“Can you name a single instance of fraud or misconduct by Wakefield, describe it simply without deferring to the authority of some faceless tribunal”
The GMC didn’t even address the issue of whether Wakefield committed SCIENTIFIC fraud, as I am inclined to define it.
“The GMC didn’t even address the issue of whether Wakefield committed SCIENTIFIC fraud, as I am inclined to define it.”
Then you are defining it wrongly.
The Panel Found Scientific Fraud
Using the beyond a reasonable doubt standard, the Panel found it proven that Wakefield committed scientific fraud. They just didn’t use those words.
They found that Wakefield deliberately lied when he described the process by which 12 children were selected for the 1998 paper in a written response to a letter to The Lancet and at a scientific meeting (page 47-48 of decision).
Similarly, he deliberately lied when the paper did not say that it was the result of a research project (page 44 of decision.
That is scientific fraud.
Probably. But I wish a panel would rule on Brian Deer’s allegations. Data fixing is qualitatively different to lying about selection procedures and conflicts of interest.
Excellent post, Sullivan. Mr. Blaxill thinks he can create his own reality, simply by twisting words and misinterpreting the evidence.
The anti-vaccine movement lost this argument a long time ago, and just saying the jury is still out doesn’t make it so.
I consider scientific fraud, per se, to be deliberate misreporting of observations and data. In those terms, the only “fraud” indicated (less than directly) by the GMC was that Wakefield misreported details of the subjects’ case histories.
“Misreporting” (i.e. “lying about”) “details” of the case histories makes a scientific study worthless. It makes the data worthless. If you say you are studying someone with DisorderX, but they, in fact, have DisorderY, you have falsified the data. How can you then say that the results apply to DisorderX? How is that not falsifying data? Not all of the subjects even had diagnoses of ASD. Not all of them had diagnoses of bowel trouble. So, what use are the data you get from these subjects? Yet, Wakefield and his defenders claim it “proves” that autism, bowel trouble and MMR are all linked. We won’t even get into the fact that the size of this study was so small as to be useless. That is scientific fraud and it is falsifying data.