We’ve already discussed Andrew Wakefield’s book, Callous Disregard, a few times here at LeftBrainRightBrain. I discussed his chapter discussed “Why”, which is painful to read, both for Mr. Wakefield’s approach to the subject and his attempt at creative writing. I discussed his chapter 1, and some of the “myths” he claims there are in the discussion of the paper in The Lancet. In that piece I referred to wading through “Callous Disregard” as a land war in Asia. Around every corner there is a statement which just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Given that, you probably won’t be surprised to see that I have skipped to the end, the epilogue of the book. I’ll quote two paragraphs.
The first is voiced as a statement to those those would promote vaccines:
There is no place for indulging futile displacement activity, sanctimonious posturing, and self protectionism. In the battle for the hearts and minds of the public, you have already lost… Why? Because the parents are right; their stories are true; their children’s brains are damaged; there is a major, major problem. In the US, increasingly coercive vaccine mandates and fear mongering advertising campaigns are a measure of your failure–vaccine uptake is not a reflection of public confidence, but of those coercive measures, and without public confidence, you have nothing.
Mr. Wakefield likes to position himself as a moderate, someone still asking whether MMR causes autism. How exactly that squares with a clear statement, “..their children’s brains are damaged…” I don’t know.
The final paragraph is a closer to his “why” chapter.
Sinking low, out over Crystal Mountain, the Texan sun still hurts the land. The cedars draw on parched earth. And the sun is gone. Stars creep into the night sky and the forest begins to move. My children are asleep and my beer is cold. From the lops of Willie Nelson, the ballad of Bobby McGee falls with a salty melancholy: “I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday”. And for a moment I am there, on the cold, wet precipice of Hounds Ghyll viaduct, 180 feet above oblivion as a small boy looks questioningly into my face, slips my hand, and is gone.
I found the essay (for want of a better word) “Why” to be a bit disturbing. This closing paragraph only confirms that impression.
Left Brain Right Brain 
This is a man who once declared his favourite music to be a particularly oily work of pop-opera.
That paragraph gives me the creeps. That’s all I can say.
The irony in the image of the lost child is lost on Wakers. He has, by his own callous disregard of facts, ethics, and honor caused many to be lost.
That he now professes a love of all things country and Texan shows a marked tendency to play to his audience.
If he were really into all things Texan, he’d know that those aren’t cedars but junipers. As an actual Texan, I’m offended that he namechecked Willie like that.
@Emily,
I had assumed Wakefield would be better at the ‘playing up’ than that. My bad, and his. My apologies.
“I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday”. An appropriate song for Wakefield. He’s stuck in the past, when he was respected and trusted, and tries to convince parents to look to a past that never was, rather than the present that is, and the possibilities of the future.
Wakefield writes (at least, I assume it’s Wakefield’s writing – I’d hope a ghost writer would do a better job):
For some reason, that line took me back to Macbeth (with apologies to William Shakespeare):
The woods are moving, McWakefield.
Prometheus
Yes, he absorbs these kind of things and recycles them. Nothing is original. So, for example, he took his oft-used line about “I’m not going away” from a speech by a corrupt state senator in The Wire who evades conviction by playing the race card.
Wakefield hides behind the children and their mothers, but since he has no true empathy for their situation, but only fakes the appearance of concern, he can’t pitch his sentiments authentically.
I think some of the people in Austin eventually saw through him, but I think if you merely encountered him in conference hotel ballrooms and bedrooms, you wouldn’t necessarily get it.
Does the term “safety first” occur in this quick read of Dr. Wakefield?
Jim Thompson,
does the term “safety first” occur–yes. Do the actions signify a person who puts safety first? No.
Example: subjecting disabled children to lumbar punctures, not clinically indicated, in order to collect data for a research project whose goal is to further litigation.
Not quite the same as injecting newborns with vaccines with Thimerosal for purposes of collecting mercury in blood data by Pichichero investigators!
Mr. Thompson can you please tell us which vaccines given to newborns have thimerosal in the USA or UK?
And perhaps tell us how that statement pertains to the MMR vaccine, which is not given to newborns and has never had thimerosal since its introduction in 1971.
Also, could you please clarify and provide documentation for this statement: “purposes of collecting mercury in blood data by Pichichero investigators!” ? How often does that happen?
All I can find is Mercury Levels in Premature and Low Birth Weight Newborns after Receipt of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Mercury Levels in Newborns and Infants After Receipt of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines. Both of these studies used subjects in Argentina (which is not part of either the USA or UK).
I am sure it is a follow up of this study done almost ten years ago:
Lancet. 2002 Nov 30;360(9347):1737-41.
Mercury concentrations and metabolism in infants receiving vaccines containing thiomersal: a descriptive study.
Pichichero ME, Cernichiari E, Lopreiato J, Treanor J.
I do not think the level of danger to the children is as high as giving colonoscopies or lumbar punctures. So could you please show us exactly how infants receiving vaccines come to danger, especially compared to getting the actual diseases. Really, do tell how the DTaP is more dangerous than pertussis, tetanus and diphtheria.
Or where on earth MMR has thimerosal and is given to infants.
Chris,
keep in mind that Pichichero did his studies in South America. This study, for example, was performed in Argentina.
This is where Pichichero and Wakefield differ. Pichichero was monitoring children who were getting thimerosal containing vaccines anyway. It was (and may still be) the standard of care.
Andrew Wakefield, on the other hand, performed tests that are not, and are still not, the standard of care. They were tests laid out in his research plan and were applied to all children (one-size-fits-all) to collect data for his research.
Very different cases, indeed.
But, Jim Thompson has left an important question unanswered. If, in his view, Wakefield and Pichichero are ethically in the same boat, are they both to be criticized or not? It appears that he wishes to apply one standard to Wakefield and another to Pichichero.
(1) all flu vaccines in multidose bottles (91 million estimated by the CDC)and recommended for pregnant women and 6 month olds.
(2) the statement pertains to the concept of using newborns as guinea pigs to collect Hg in blood data as opposed to Wakefield et al doing a case study to establish a hypothesis that may result in safer vaccine practice.
(3) the second reference “Mercury levels in Newborns…” is the one
(4)These studies were sponsored by the NIH & most of the authors from the US
(5)Low level toxicity of heavy metals is well known. Flu shots have the equivalent of 4 U.S. ounces of D009 hazardous waste.
(6) Mercury has not been used in paint since 1990 either but it is still used in flu shots.
(1) (again) the Pichichero work was sponsored by NIH and most authors were from the US. The US AAP and PHS declared that Thimerosal should be removed from childhood vaccines eight years prior to that publication by Pichichero et al.
(2) Try not to mistake others’ views. They are not considered in the same boat ethically.
I know the two more recent studies were done in Argentina, Sully. Obviously they wanted to test more babies, and since the American HepB vaccine did not contain thimerosal, they had to go to where that vaccine still had it.
Mr. Thompson:
Since when are six month old babies still considered “newborn”? The flu vaccine is available without thimerosal, plus very few children actually get the flu vaccine.
Last time I looked the flu vaccine is not the either of the MMR vaccines “studied” by Wakefield. And a reminder that the MMR is not given to newborns, and has never contained thimerosal since its introduction almost forty years ago (the American MMR).
As to the three (3, that is all! just three!) studies with Pichiero, the vaccines to the children would have had on the Argentinian schedule. It was testing the mercury level of children for a vaccine they was (quoting the first study I cited, with added bolding): “All children received exposure to thimerosal containing Hepatitis B vaccines as routinely administered in Argentina (described below),”.
Now answer these questions: What vaccines given to newborns contain thimerosal? Don’t try to get out of the fact you said “newborn”! Something recommended for children older than six months does not count. Also, remember Argentina is still not part of the USA or the UK. Even if the Americans went there to conduct the study, it in no way changes the American vaccines.
How does giving children the standard recommended vaccines equate to non-medically indicated lumbar punctures and colonoscopies? Please tell us exactly what dangers children are in by getting the HepB, Hib, DTaP and IPV vaccines. Especially when compared to getting those diseases.
(1)In most states today the CDC offers grants for “free” flu shots to state health departments and most shots are in multidose form with Thimerosal.
(2) Don’t confuse the Pichichero et al example of treating newborns like guinea pigs with the injection of flu shots with thimerosal into pregnant women and 6 month olds.
(3) Funded with US funds and studied by US investigators–all the while thimerosal preservative was considered important to remove from vaccines in the US since 2000.
(4) Each shot by Pichichero with thimerosal preservative had the same mercury by weight as 4 U.S. ounces of D009 mercury hazardous waste!
(5) Each flu shot with thimerosal preservative in the US today given to children 6 months and older and to pregnant women has the same mercury by weight as 4 U.S. ounces of D009 mercury hazardous waste!
Answer the real question: How does giving children the standard recommended vaccines equate to non-medically indicated lumbar punctures and colonoscopies? Please tell us exactly what dangers children are in by getting the HepB, Hib, DTaP and IPV vaccines. Especially when compared to getting those diseases.
Why are you avoiding that?
Also, in the percentage of children between the ages of 6 to 23 months getting the flu vaccine was less than 3%. It may be slightly more now, but it also does not change the fact that the vaccine is available without thimerosal. Plus, several states have laws prohibiting children from getting vaccines with thimerosal. And again, they are not newborns!!!! You said newborn, stop moving the goal post.
Pichichero did three studies, two in another country!!! The reason was that it was no longer used in the USA.
So stop that silly argument, moving of the goal posts and answer the above question.
(1) asked and answered
(2)and by the way, D009 mercury hazardous waste is exactly how unused vaccines with thimerosal preservative must be disposed in the US. It is considered too toxic to flush down a toilet.
(3)the CDC 2006 data referenced above gives the estimate of 6 to 23 month olds vaccinated for flu at 48.4 %(don’t mistake the data of 2.9 million children as 2.9%).
(4)the word newborns was used only in the Pichichero et al comparison–try not to confuse that with the flu shot statements about 6 month olds and pregnant women.
Apologies for misreading the table. You are correct, I was wrong. It does say almost 50%. But, still that is not all of them. In my state they would have only had thimerosal free influenza vaccine (legal mandate).
Where? I must have missed it. Where is the documentation? What studies did you cite? How exactly is DTaP more dangerous than pertussis, diphtheria and tetanus.
Answer this question with real references: How does giving children the standard recommended vaccines equate to non-medically indicated lumbar punctures and colonoscopies? Please tell us exactly what dangers children are in by getting the HepB, Hib, DTaP and IPV vaccines. Especially when compared to getting those diseases.
Stop moving goal posts. Pichichero used actual newborns for a vaccine used on newborns that no longer contains thimerosal. The influenza vaccine is not approved for newborns. Newsflash: the influenza vaccine is not the hepatitis B vaccine, and is available without thimerosal.
The shots given by Pichichero et al had Thimerosal preservative.
–and–
“All vaccines were administered by the investigators at the time of the enrollment visit.” (See page e209 of Pichichero et al)
–and–
“the Pichichero work was sponsored by NIH and most authors were from the US. The US AAP and PHS declared that Thimerosal should be removed from childhood vaccines eight years prior to that publication by Pichichero et al.” (from previous answer above at November 18 3:33:33)
Finally it is obscene that 2.9 million children at 6 to 23 months got flu shots in 2006 (or any year)–when thimerosal preservative is still incorrectly recommended by CDC as safe.
So going back to the first comment, “Does the term “safety first” occur in this quick read of Dr. Wakefield?”–SAFETY FIRST may likely be why your state does not allow thimerosal in vaccines for children or pregnant women.
Answer this question with real references: How does giving children the standard recommended vaccines equate to non-medically indicated lumbar punctures and colonoscopies? Please tell us exactly what dangers children are in by getting the HepB, Hib, DTaP and IPV vaccines. Especially when compared to getting those diseases.
Chris,
I will leave you to Jim Thompson. Given that he appears to appears to have a double standard ongoing and is doing an effective job of thread-jacking, I’ll sit out from here.
Given that Thimerosal in vaccines has been shown to not be a primary cause of autism, nor any other condition for that matter, and that the children in south America would have gotten the same vaccines without Pichichero’s team’s activities, I find the accusatory nature of Mr. Thompson’s statements to be baseless.
Put simply:
a) Giving infants thimerosal containing vaccines is standard practice in much of the world still, and no evidence exists that it causes autism.
b) Giving disabled children lumbar punctures carries far more risk and was unwarranted for many of the children that Mr. Wakefield’s team used in their research project.
(b) is a clear cut case of not putting safety first, and (a) is the part of a study which was clarifying the safety issues surrounding vaccines.
The toxicity of ethyl mercury, the type used in Thimerosal, is quite different and far less than methyl mercury. Ethyl mercury is rapidly flushed from the body while methyl mercury takes much longer to do so and thereby presents the greater hazard.
Your 4 oz claim is disingenuous and the classifications of waste products have nothing whatever to do with the effect of the minuscule doses in flu shots.
Wakefield pushed for tests which were only necessary for his litigation sponsored research. They represented no help to his patients.
(1) The threshold for mercury hazardous waste D009 is 0.2 parts per million. Flu shots with thimerosal preservative, recommended as safe by the FDA for 6 month old children and pregnant women, have over 200 times that level.
(2) Ask any U.S. hospital staff if they dispose of unused vaccines with Thimerosal preservative as D009 mercury hazardous waste with a licensed hazardous waste facility.
(3) The penalties for noncompliance of regulations under the US Rescource Conservation and Recovery Act include fines and jail time.
And yet, the FDA recommendation is perfectly fine and safe. Can you think of the reason why that is, Jim? Bonus question: Why does the EPA limit have to be so low?
Jim, do fish processors dispose of their fish waste with more than 0.2 ppm mercury as hazardous waste? Canned tuna fish has about 0.5 ppm mercury.
Not to repeat a point but daedalus2u’s 0.5ppm is the bad, slow flushing mercury. Hmm, tuna for lunch today too.
Sounds like, “Oh, noes, the toxins!” Fear mongering at its finest.
Mr. Thompson you really don’t want to answer the question. Please try again: How does giving children the standard recommended vaccines equate to non-medically indicated lumbar punctures and colonoscopies? Please tell us exactly what dangers children are in by getting the HepB, Hib, DTaP and IPV vaccines. Especially when compared to getting those diseases.
Here is an article that should help you: £500,000 for boy left fighting for life after being used as MMR guinea pig
Daedalus2u
November 18th, 2010
15:56:31
Jim, do fish processors dispose of their fish waste with more than 0.2 ppm mercury as hazardous waste? Canned tuna fish has about 0.5 ppm mercury.
You may want to ask these people
http://www.hawaii-seafood.org/Symposium-Statement/about-the-speakers-2/
Any might be an interesting interview subject for this blog.
This
http://www.lhwmp.org/home/mercury/fish.aspx
says it used to be toxic waste,but isn’t any more.
Well, I can anwer Mr Thompson from a hospital point of view: it doesn’t matter what the medication is or what it contains. Almost all medications are handled as hazardous waste, even a dropped aspirin tablet would go into a hazardous waste bag. Just like anything with body fluids on it. Basically, just about everything in a hospital that has to do with patients is handled as hazardous waste. So, yeah, hepatitis B vials are considered hazarous waste. So are penicillin vials. So are almost all vials a nurse uses, with the exception perhaps of normal saline or sterile water. However, as we are accustomed to throwing everything else in hazardous waste bags, I would bet most of us throw those vials in there too.
Also, Mr Thompson, as has been pointed out to you before, you can’t compare apples (ethyl mercury) with oranges (methyl mercury). They are excreted at different rates by the body and you can’t use the FDA levels for methyl mercury for both. It’s not appropriate.
Obviously, Mr Thompson is of the thimerosol causes autism camp (along with the fact that the NIH is EVIL, we are all paid by Big Pharma, and we are all “sheeple”), and, like Kim Stagliano, is sure that even if the baby never got any vaccines with it, it MUST be from something in the mother – her fillings, her childhood vaccines, her flu vaccine with thimerosol while pregnant (even if most physicians don’t seem to give that version either. Both my ob/gyn and my primary only carried the single dose/thimerosol free version).
(1) The USEPA mercury hazardous waste threshold is twenty five times lower than that for lead (Pb).
(2) Mercury in fish is not safe for infants or pregnant women and so two wrongs do not make a right.
(3) Thimerosal preservative is not medically indicated.
(4) The AAP and PHS declared that Thimerosal should be removed from childhood vaccines eight years prior to the published work by Pichichero et al.
(5) Unused vaccines with thimerosal preservative are D009 hazardous waste. They they are too toxic to be flushed down a sanitary sewer.
Jim Thompson is a tape recording. He cannot respond or evaluate, only parrot the same copy and paste information. Sad but unsurprising.
Mr. Thompson you have ignored my question. Why are you going on about thimerosal when Wakefield’s shoddy and fraudulent research was on the MMR? The MMR, I repeat, has never contained thimerosal in its almost forty years of use.
The question is not ignored. Look again at the repeated answers at:
03:13:30
–and–
03:33:33
–and–
04:12:22
–and–
05:02:10
–and–
05:43:59
–and–
01:16:25
Surely there must be some cognitive dissonance here upon learning that those “safe” vaccines with thimerosal preservative recommended by the FDA and CDC for 6 month olds and pregnant women are in reality considered hazardous–so hazardous that it is illegal to flush them down the toilet or place them in a municipla waste landfill.
Any thoughts?
Mr. Thompson:
My thought is that you are not really reading and understanding the responses. For some reason you worship Wakefield and refuse to see that he is a fraud. You are also stuck into one issue, which is really a non-issue. Flu vaccines are available without thimerosal. Some states have mandated that pregnant woman and children receive those vaccines only for political reasons (and to shut people like you up), not for any scientific reason.
(1) Again, it is obscene that 2.9 million children at 6 to 23 months got flu shots in 2006 (or any year)—when thimerosal preservative is still incorrectly recommended by CDC and FDA as safe.
(2) In reality those flu shots are considered hazardous–so hazardous that it is illegal to flush them down the toilet or place them in a municipal waste landfill.
(3) Dr. Wakefield acted in an effort to help children.
(4) Pharmaceutical companies, using Thimerosal preservative, act in an effort or profit from them.
(5) Pichichero et al, including six investigators affiliated with U.S. facilities (see Pichichero et al, Pediatrics, 2008), ignored the “Joint Statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the United States Public Health Service–July 7, 1999 4:15 PM” that “the Public Health Service, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and vaccine manufacturers agree that thimerosal-containing vaccines should be removed as soon as possible.” They wanted mercury in blood data from these newborns.
Mr Thompson,
Thimerosal has not been shown to cause harm. It was removed from vaccines voluntarily, not as a point of error or danger. Once removed autism rates did not fall. No effect was uncovered or ever proved.
Why do you continue to conflate waste levels with injection levels? They are tied to very different concerns and therefore have differing set points. The level of ethyl mercury in flu shots is safe and effective for its intended use.
@Jim: Have you stopped to think that perhaps the cognitive dissonance is yours? Note that you’re assuming you know better than experts in the field from the FDA. I suppose that’s possible, but is it likely? Typically, if you think you’ve noticed something that thousands of experts have not, you’re probably wrong.
See, the EPA guidelines apply to thiings like industrial wastewater. Suppose your drinking water had 0.2 ppm mercury. Since you drink 2 liters of water a day, you’d be getting about 400 micrograms of mercury every day. This is quite a bit. It’s the equivalent of about 20 tuna sandwiches per day. Clearly, you don’t want water that might be used for drinking to have anything close to 0.2 ppm mercury.
The context matters, otherwise a concentration expressed in ppm means nothing. Example: I have 1 milligram of water with a mercury concentration of 2 ppm. How much mercury is in it, and how dangerous is it? Do the math, and get back to me.
Mr. Thompson:
Oh, really? The evidence says something else. He acted to bring himself cash and fame. He only studied the MMR (a vaccine that has never contained thimerosal) because a lawyer paid him for certain results.
A man who wants to help children does not order unnecessary colonoscopies or lumbar punctures.
(1) Thimerosal contains mercury which is a heavy metal.
(2) Lead is a heavy metal.
(3) Hazardous waste threshold levels for lead (D008)and for mercury (D009)are set to protect humans, especially the most vulnerable in society–infants and the developing fetus.
(4) The mercury (Hg) D009 hazardous waste threshold is twenty five times lower than that for the lead (Pb)D008 hazardous waste threshold.
(5) The USEPA term for these thresholds is Maximum Concentration of Contaminants for the Toxicity Characteristic.
(6) These levels are not established as safe by the USEPA. Unused vaccines with these levels are illegal to dispose in a sanitary sewer or municipal waste landfill.
(7) The USEPA SDWA MCL (maximum contaminant level) for drinking water for lead is 15 parts per billion. For mercury it is 2 parts per billion.
(8) A flu shot with thimerosal preservative has the same amount of mercury by weight as 4 U.S. Ounces of D009 mercury hazardous waste.
Read Callous Disregard by Dr. Wakefield. Dr. Wakefield acted in an effort to protect children.
Pichichero et al wanted data for mercury in newborn blood.
Mr Thompson,
Conversing with you is like playing with a broken talking doll that only has one answer repeated over and over no matter how many times you pull the string.
The callous disregard was all on Wakefield’s side.
He disregarded the safety of the children in his care.
He disregarded ethical standards by accepting money from lawyers to find legally valuable problem with the current MMR.
He disregarded conflict of interest rules by trying to push his own vaccine to replace the MMR.
He disregarded the truth by (allegedly) doctoring data about the presence of measles in the gut of his victims (patients).
He disregarded the honor of his profession by lying about his project for over 12 years. He continues to do so at the risk of children getting sick, suffering, and even dying from preventable disease.
Pretty callous, I’d say.
Well, I’ve read Callous Disregard, named from an incident when Wakefield bought blood from children at a birthday party and then laughed about them crying fainting and vomiting.
I also know that he wanted to get into children’s guts to prove his utterly defunct theory that measles virus caused Crohn’s disease. Developmentally typical children’s parents would never allow such a thing, leaving Wakefield waiting years to get his evidence, based on the normal, lawful, throughput at the Royal Free.
But, lo and behold, along comes a group of parents who would let him do anything to their children. Mostly desperate, often working class, mothers at their wits end.
Sickening. Just sickening.
“Read Callous Disregard by Dr. Wakefield. Dr. Wakefield acted in an effort to protect children.”
The highest relevant authourity found that he didn’t, as evidenced by multiple cases of unethical behaviour and professional misconduct. The huge gap between what Wakefield claimed happened and what the evidence (including that generated by himself) showed was so significant, that it attracted repeated and exasperated comment from experienced professionals who were fully privy to all the information.
Rather odd that you’d hold an authourity (the EPA) in flawless regard when they agree with you, but you dismiss without cause or justification authourities like the FDA and the GMC when they don’t.
Please explain why you hold these contradictory values.
“The question is not ignored. Look again at the repeated answers at:
03:13:30—and—03:33:33—and—04:12:22—and—05:02:10—and—05:43:59—and—01:16:25”
They don’t answer the question.
Lets have a look:
03:13:30 : contains only one point that is relevant to the subject of the question, and does not address the concerns raised in the question. You merely repeated the assertion that had been questioned. Fail.
03:33:33 : The first half of this post fails to make grammatical sense as it seems to start halfway through an idea and fails to properly inform anyone else what that idea is even supposed to be related to. The second half merely asserts the view that were already under question. No answer there. Grammer and logic fail.
04:12:22: contains no reference to the question subject at all. Memory fail.
05:02:10: Again, makes very little grammatical sense and fails to reference what it supposedly refers to. Even if we presume quite a bit, it merely asserts the question has been answered, yet the answer presumably reffered to was itself an unsupported assertion. Grammer fail, logic fail.
05:43:59: Contains no reference to the question subject at all. Again, memory fail.
01:16:25: Also contains no reference to the question subject at all.
Please refrain from lying to us in the future.
Let us return to the question :
“How does giving children the standard recommended vaccines equate to non-medically indicated lumbar punctures and colonoscopies? Please tell us exactly what dangers children are in by getting the HepB, Hib, DTaP and IPV vaccines. Especially when compared to getting those diseases.”
Bearing in mind the observation :
“Andrew Wakefield, on the other hand, performed tests that are not, and are still not, the standard of care. They were tests laid out in his research plan and were applied to all children (one-size-fits-all) to collect data for his research.”
What is your answer? Bearing in mind that you cannot hold to the findings of the EPA without cause, yet dismiss the FDA and GMC without cause.
You will repsond in appropriately and properly constructed sentences, you will ensure that your responses are clear what they are responding to and you will ensure that you do not include any superflous information.
@Jim: Second chance. Address the following paragraph of my comment at 14:49:11:
Jim Thompson opines:
Dr. Wakefield may have thought he was acting “in an effort to protect children”, but a panel of his medical peers disagreed. Strenuously.
Leaving aside for a moment Dr. Wakefield’s innermost thoughts and beliefs (which are, for us, forever unknowable), let us briefly go over his actions (which are all that we can objectively know).
He knowingly violated rules of research ethics by performing invasive tests which were not medically indicated (then or now).
He knowingly violated rules of research ethics by obtaining specimens (blood) from children without obtaining proper informed consent from their parents (research consent forms typically take from 30 minutes to 1 hour to review and sign).
He deliberately witheld information about a serious conflict of interest (his financial arrangements with solicitors preparing a lawsuit over MMR vaccination) from co-workers, his institution and the editors of The Lancet (not to mention everybody who read “that paper”.
[Note: because of this, I dissolve into paroxysms of laughter whenever he – or one of his sycophants – rants about “conflict of interest” in medical research. This isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, it is the heavily smoke-begrimed black iron pot calling the shiny new stainless steel kettle with a few smudgy fingerprints black.]
So, no matter what Dr. Wakefield may now think that his motives might have been – and no matter what he says they were in his over-long, poorly-written apologia – his actions were unethical and more than warranted the punishments he has received.
No doubt this will not stop Andy Wakefield from being a saviour in his own mind.
Prometheus
Prometheus,
I can add, I have read Callous Disregard. I have also read much of the GMC transcripts. There really isn’t anything new in Mr. Wakefield’s defense in Callous Disregard. Yes, he tells us how bad people like Brian Deer and Richard Horton are in his mind. Yes, he makes a smear against Eric Fombonne (repeating an ill founded rumor), that sort of thing. But as to his defense, nothing new. Just the same stuff that was totally unconvincing to the GMC.
Thank you Dedj, I did not have the time nor stomach to go back through those posts. I mostly noted he refused to provide any evidence, so there were no papers listed.
Mr. Thompson, I believe you did not click on the Jack Piper news story, so I doubt you will read these:
Determination on Serious Professional Misconduct (SPM) and Sanction
and
Chadwick Testimony