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A new Autism Media Channel video. A chance to watch some sleight of hand

17 Oct

Andrew Wakefield has a new video with stunning new revelations of malfeasance by the CDC. Well, that’s what he wants you to think. Let’s take a look and see how well his story stands up to scrutiny, shall we? To do this I’ll highlight two of the problems with the video.  The first I’ve already discussed some: Mr. Wakefield claims the CDC hid a result but the CDC actually published it. For the second problem, let’s follow Mr. Wakefield as he creates a timeline showing us how the CDC’s research plan was supposedly revised in response to some analysis results.  Then let’s piece together the real timeline.

We will start with problem one. The basic idea of Mr. Wakefields argument in his new video is that the CDC hid an association in a group of kids allegedly susceptible to becoming autistic due to the MMR. This group are those with “isolated autism”: autism without intellectual disability, birth defects or other possible cause.

There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors in the video, but here’s the main result.  An increased odd ratio for “isolated autism” for kids vaccinated before 36 months.  Calculated odds ratio is 2.48.  With a confidence interval that doesn’t span 1 (1.16 to 5.31).

Wakefield smoke and mirrors

There’s much drama in the video about this.  For example, here’s what Brian Hooker had to say (about 3:25 into the video).

What CDC employees do, when they see an effect, then they will get in a room together and they will work until that association goes away

Followed by Mr Wakefield:

But that didn’t seem to happen. They deviated further from the analysis plan by limiting the isolated group to only those with no mental retardation. Even changing the age categories and composition of the isolated subgroup may not have achieved the desired effect. Since, in the end, the simply omitted the relevant findings from the paper altogether.

That’s an amazing claim, isn’t it? The CDC allegedly just buried the result.  “Omitted the findings altogether.”

Except that the CDC didn’t hide the result. They reported on autism without MR. Here’s table 4 from the paper in Pediatrics.

Destefano_table_4 highlighted

If you want to say, “well autism without MR isn’t the same thing as ‘isolated autism’, consider this: the answer is basically unchanged from what Mr. Wakefield claims was “omitted”.   Take a look at the table: in the total sample, the group without MR has basically the same result as was supposedly hidden.   Odds ratio 2.45 (compared to 2.48), with confidence interval from 1.20 to 5.00 (compared to 1.16 to 5.31).  Which is to say: the CDC published the result that Mr. Wakefield claims was hidden.

Smoke.  Mirrors.  Wakefield.  Hooker.

This result is 10 years old.  And no one, not Wakefield, Not Hooker, not anyone in the real advocacy community has made a big deal out of it until now. I do not profess to understand how Mr. Wakefield nor Mr. Hooker think, but here’s one reason why most people haven’t considered this “autism without MR” result a big deal:  this is a raw data result.  A result unadjusted for any possible confounders.  The adjusted result, also highlighted in the figure above, shows a confidence interval that spans 1.  In other words, there’s no suggestion of a real effect when one does a full analysis.

Which of course shows us why people do full analyses.  Sometimes associations change when one controls for other factors.  Sometimes associations get stronger.  Sometimes they go away.  Sometimes things that appear to not be associations are shown to be associations.

Now that we’ve seen that the conclusion from Mr. Wakefield’s video is wrong, let’s consider a second problem with this new video: the way in which Mr. Wakefield manipulates his audience.  He creates a timeline for the CDC’s actions that allows Mr. Wakefield to use his new favorite “f” word.  Fraud.  Let’s go through the timeline.

At about 2:20 in the video, Mr. Wakefield shows us a fraction of a page of the analysis plan. The protocol. Dated September 5, 2001.

draft analysis plan screenshot

We then get this ominous voiceover. Complete with the analysis plan page going up in flames. Very dramatic:

“Over the ensuing months, after the data after the data had been collected and analyzed, and strictly forbidden in the proper conduct of science, the group abandoned the approved analysis plan, introducing a revised analysis plan to help them deal with their problem.”

And to “prove” that months later the CDC introduced a new analysis plan we are shown notes supposedly documenting that the CDC team were creating that revised plan:

Scary Revised Analysis Plan Screenshot

You are supposed to say, “they revised the analysis plan!  That’s bad!” But do you see what I see? That these are notes from September 6, 2001 2011?  Not after the “ensuing months” but one day later after the plan was finalized. I guess we weren’t supposed to look at the date, just the scary words “revised analysis plan”.

From these notes it appears to say that there will be a records review on September 12th and that in advance of that, whoever wrote these notes needs to get the revised analysis plan. Not, “hey, let’s fabricate a new analysis plan” but, “Hey, the plan was revised yesterday and I should get a copy”. Or, to put it another way: how sinister does the note read sound when the plan was just finalized the day before?

So, when did the CDC do the analysis that Mr. Wakefield shows in his video?  You know, the analysis that the “revised” plan was supposed to avoid?  November, 2001.  Two months later after the plan was finalized and, importantly, two months after those notes were taken. Here’s a screenshot from a talk Mr. Hooker recently gave about his work and the DeStefano paper.  He showed one of the same tables that Mr. Wakefield uses in his video (29:11 into the video).  Notice the date? November 7. In the audio he says “they did see a statistically significant result as early as November 7th, 2001”.  Mr. Wakefield’s first video (the ugly, race-baiting one) also references the November 7th meeting.  So it looks like this is the earliest evidence Mr. Wakefield and Mr. Hooker have  of the CDC obtaining results for this study.

Hooker_CDC

Now, let’s compare how Mr. Wakefield presented a chain of events and what actually happened.

The impression Mr. Wakefield gives in his video is that:

(a) first the plan for the research was finalized by the CDC team,

(b) then they found data which showed an effect they didn’t like and

(c) after “ensuing months” the CDC team then held a meeting in which notes were taken that they had to revise the plan.

Here’s what the actual events appear to be

(a) the research plan was finalized on Sept. 5,

(b) on Sept. 6, someone (likely Mr. Thompson) took notes that he had to get the revised plan and

(c) on November 7, what appears to be the first pass at data analysis were presented presented in an internal CDC meeting.

No evidence of revising the plan after the analysis.  The image of the meeting notes are being used as props to craft a story. Andrew Wakefield apparently doesn’t understand the first rule of documentaries.  And apparently whatever ability he had for reporting factually has long since faded since he left grad school.

And, Brian Hooker?  He’s not just a prop in these videos.  He’s an active participant.  His organization has paid Mr. Wakefield for at least the first video.  The race-baiting video.

The autism communities deserve better. Better than Andrew Wakefield.  Better than Brian Hooker.

—

By Matt Carey

The Quacks behind the Warrior Moms

13 Oct

‘I accept Dr Carpenter’s opinion that there is no evidence that any of these treatments were individually beneficial for M and that collectively they were intrusive and contrary to his best interests.  M’s life was increasingly dominated by the programme of treatment to the exclusion of other activities.  I find that E has implemented a programme of diet, supplements and treatments and therapies indiscriminately, with no analysis as to whether they are for M’s benefit, and on a scale that has been oppressive and contrary to his interests.  She has exercised total control of this aspect of M’s life.’

Mr Honourable Justice Baker, In the Court of Protection, Judgment, In the matter of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and in the matter of M, 11 August 2014

Brian Deer has once again done a service to the autism community, by putting in the public domain the judgment of Mr Justice Baker in the case arising from a dispute between a local authority and the mother (E) and father (A) of a young man (M) with autism.

http://briandeer.com/solved/mother-lied-protection-news.htm

Deer’s report, published in the Sunday Times on 12 October, focuses on the judge’s scathing judgment on E, a prominent supporter of the claim by the discredited Royal Free researcher Andrew Wakefield of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Mr Justice Baker concluded that E had fabricated evidence of an adverse reaction to MMR in her son, invented a range of associated diagnoses, subjected her son to unnecessary tests and treatments, neglected a dental abscess and indulged in fantasy conspiracy theories.

This Court of Protection case offered a rare opportunity to ventilate in public some of the controversies that have raged in the world of autism over the past decade. In the USA, the Omnibus Autism proceedings in 2008-9 provided a public forum in which claims regarding vaccine-autism links and associated alternative treatments were exposed as scientifically baseless and clinically irresponsible.

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/6283#.VDqLgWd0yUk

Though Mr Justice Baker did not address the MMR link or alternative treatments in general, his 92 page report provides a devastating indictment of the role of a range of therapists in relation to M, some of whom appeared as witnesses. In addition to exclusion diets and supplements, M received homeopathy, cranial osteopathy, reflexology, naturopathy, light and sound therapy, auditory integration training and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. It is clear that E’s descent into irrationality and paranoia was supported and encouraged by a number of dubious authorities and therapists, with damaging consequences for her son and her family.

Three therapists gave evidence in support of E’s treatment of her son. Shelley Birkett-Eyles, an occupational therapist working in a private clinic, was accepted by Mr Justice Baker as a ‘responsible practitioner’, though he noted that her reliability was challenged by Dr Peter Carpenter, a consultant psychiatrist with a special interest in learning disability, the expert witness called by the local authority.

Dr Peter Julu describes himself as ‘autonomic neurophysiologist’ (based at the private Breakspear Clinic), though Mr Justice Baker questioned whether this was a legitimate speciality and noted that his diagnosis of ‘neurodevelopmental dysautonomia’ was disputed by Dr Carpenter, who also challenged the reliability of his assessments and treatments, particularly his recommendation of hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Ms Juliet Hayward, a nutritional therapist, was censured for giving ‘advice well beyond her expertise’, in endorsing a diagnosis of Lyme Disease and in prescribing a dietary protocol without taking an adequate medical history. Mr Justice Baker concluded that he ‘was left with a profound anxiety about Ms Haywood’s influence on E and her role in the treatment that M has received.’

Mr Justice Baker was particularly concerned that none of these three had received training in issues of ‘mental capacity’ as codified in the 2005 Mental Capacity Act. He observed that ‘it was clear from their evidence that none of them had given proper consideration to the question whether M had capacity to consent to their assessments or the treatment they were prescribing’.

In addition to these therapists, E called as expert witnesses two veterans of the Wakefield anti-MMR campaign: Dr Ken Aitken, a clinical psychologist formerly associated with the (now defunct) Autism Treatment Trust providing alternative treatments in Edinburgh; and Mr Paul Shattock, a retired pharmacy lecturer from Sunderland, a long-standing promoter of exclusion diets and unorthodox biomedical therapies.

http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/5992#.VDqNsWd0yUk

By contrast with other expert witnesses (including Dr Peter Carpenter, Dr Alison Beck, Professor Robin Williamson, Dr Gwyn Adshead, Mr Keith McKinstrie), whom Mr Justice  Baker found to be ‘wholly reliable and professional’, he expressed considerable reservations about Aitken and Shattock:

‘I was concerned at times as to their qualifications to opine on some of the matters about which they gave evidence.’

In his conclusion, Mr Justice Baker categorically rejected the approach advocated by Aitken and Shattock in relation to M:

‘I stress, again, that I am not making any definitive findings on the efficacy of alternative treatments generally.  That is not the subject of these proceedings, which are about M.  I do, however, find that: (1) there is no reliable evidence that the alternative treatments given to M have had any positive impact on people with autism generally or M in particular and (2) the approach to prescribing alternative treatments to and assessing the impact of such treatments on people with autism in general and M in particular has lacked the rigor and responsibility usually associated with conventional medicine.’

Mr Justice Baker repudiated ‘the fallacy’ of E’s belief that there are two parallel approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of autism, each of which is equally valid:

‘The evidence in this hearing has demonstrated clearly that there is one approach – the clinical approach advocated by Dr Carpenter – that is methodical, rigorous and valid, and other approaches advocated by a number of other practitioners, for which there is no evidence of any positive impact and which (in this case at least) have been followed with insufficient rigor.  Whilst each treatment may be harmless, they may, if imposed collectively and indiscriminately, be unduly restrictive and contrary to the patient’s interests.  These disadvantages are compounded when, as in several instances in this case, insufficient consideration is given by the practitioners to the question of whether a mentally-incapacitated patient has consented to or wishes to have the treatment.’

Given his characterisation of E’s performance in court as controlling, manipulative, duplicitous and obstructive it was perhaps not surprising that Mr Justice Baker expressed some sympathy for the long-suffering family GP, Dr W. This ‘older-style family GP’ had been ‘tolerant and sympathetic’ and had maintained a good relationship with the family ‘until he went into the witness box’, when it became clear to E and her husband that, though Dr W had been attentive to the family needs and had responded to her requests to arrange investigations that he did not consider clinically indicated, he did not endorse her wilder theories and diagnoses. Though the parents later expressed ‘disillusionment’ with Dr W, Mr Justice Baker found his evidence ‘responsible, truthful and humane’.

Michael Fitzpatrick

13 October 2014

Michael Fitzpatrick has an autistic son close in age to M; he is a doctor, former GP and the author of MMR and Autism: What Parents Need to Know (2004) and Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion (2009)

Brian Deer: Wakefield ‘MMR mother’ fabricated injury story

12 Oct

Brian Deer, the reporter who broke the story on Andrew Wakefield’s conflicts of interests, has a new story on his website:

Wakefield ‘MMR mother’ fabricated injury story
In a newly-released judgment from England’s Court of Protection, a prominent anti-vaccine campaigner is branded a manipulative liar. Brian Deer reports

The story is quite sad. And while it presents an extreme case, there are themes here which have been seen elsewhere.

A British “mother warrior”, who claimed that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is responsible for autism, fabricated accounts of injury to her son and persistently lied about his health, a London court has ruled.

The mother, “E”, who cannot be named so as to protect her son’s identity, concocted a story about how he reacted to an MMR shot in January 1991. She said that he became distressed with fever and then lost speech, eye contact and play immediately following his three-in-one at the age of 18 months.

She claimed that he screamed after immunization, and that this was followed by six hours of convulsions and vomiting, and then six months in a “persistent vegetative state”.

But in a landmark 45,000-word judgment, which entered the public domain last week from the Court of Protection, the mother was dismissed as a manipulative liar. It was found that she had made up the story so as to bring attention to herself and had plied her developmentally delayed son with a mass of sometimes bizarre “biomedical” interventions so as to gain “total control” over his life.

Mr. Deer’s story goes on (Wakefield ‘MMR mother’ fabricated injury story) with more details. Many more details are in the court’s judgment which is linked to at the end of Mr. Deer’s article. I won’t copy it all here, I encourage you to read it there.

Here’s a paragraph from the judgment that goes to the evolution of the story surrounding the day in which the child received the MMR vaccine. The fact that the allegation of a vaccine reaction was not made until is important as this was 10 years after the event. Also worth noting is that this individual showed developmental issues well before the MMR vaccine.

After the allegation of an adverse reaction to MMR was eventually recorded in 2001, it became more dramatic in subsequent accounts. Thus, in 2001 the description was: “Distressed after injection. Had fever. Eyes glazed, dilated and fixed.” E’s account became more florid over time, with references to screaming, jolting, spasming and a persistent vegetative state. In her final statement she said that: “M died within six hours of the MMR.” In the witness box she gave a full account of the events on the day on which the MMR was administered and M’s reaction to it. E acknowledges in her final statement that she uses certain words and phrases in her own particular way. For example, for her the phrase “vegetative state” means “slipping in and out of consciousness, not responding and appearing lifeless.” And her use of the word “died” to describe what happened to M means “stopped breathing and lost consciousness”

I’d be very interested when “died” became part of the story. Reading the above I was very much reminded of Jenny McCarthy’s statement that her son died from vaccine injury. Ms. McCarthy was referring to her son’s very serious seizures. The timeline has never been made clear, but those seizures appear to have began a year or more after her son’s vaccinations. But her vague choice of words led many to claim that her son “died” shortly after vaccination.

As to “E”‘s experience taking her son to the Royal Free Hospital:

Throughout the hearing, E insisted that M had been given the diagnosis of autistic enterocolitis or leaky gut syndrome and alleged that some of the Royal Free medical records must be missing. I reject that assertion. I find that not even the Royal Free team, who at that time were leading the way and postulating the link between autism and a form of colitis, found any evidence in 2001 of significant gut disorder in M. In his case no diagnosis of autistic enterocolitis or leaky gut syndrome was ever made.

There’s a great deal more, in both Mr. Deer’s story and the 92 page judgment.

—
By Matt Carey

Citizen Autistic screening October 19 in Redwood City, California

11 Oct

A documentary, Citizen Autistic, will be shown on October 19th in Redwood City, California. The event page at BrownPaperTickets.com can be found here: Citizen Autistic Screening in Redwood City, October 19.

Citizen Autistic Trailer from William Davenport on Vimeo.

Here is a description of the event:

The documentary Citizen Autistic will be shown on October 19, 2014, 5-7 PM, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City, at 2124 Brewster Avenue, Redwood City, CA 94062.

Director William Davenport will be present, as will some of the documentary’s interviewees. Ticket proceeds will benefit the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, http://www.autisticadvocacy.org.

—
By Matt Carey

Jude Mirra’s mother takes the stand in murder case

9 Oct

Jude Mirra was an autistic 8 year old.  Was as in he’s dead.  His mother killed him with a fatal overdose of drugs and alcohol.  His mother, Gigi Jordan, is now on trial for his murder.

If you have followed this story, you likely know what a strange story she has told.  At one point someone (presumably associated with her) posted multiple documents online (gigijordanbail.com as I recall).  Rather than focus on her account, let’s consider the facts.  She killed her son.  The only question now appears to be whether she forced the drugs into his mouth or not.  From the New York Times, In Testimony, Mother Who Killed Son, 8, Denies She Forcibly Drugged Him:

The police found the boy, Jude Mirra, dead in a bed at the Peninsula Hotel at about noon on Feb. 5. The door had been barricaded with a chair. Ms. Jordan was on the floor next to the bed, surrounded by pills. A pill crusher and a syringe used to force feed patients were discovered, along with empty vodka bottles.

An autopsy showed Jude had ingested fatal doses of several medications, including the sleeping pill Ambien and the tranquilizer Xanax. A medical examiner testified the boy had bruises on his face and chest consistent with having a mixture of pills forced down his throat.

She claims that her son was being abused by multiple people, including his biological father.  And, her story goes, she was being stalked by her son’s legal father (her former husband) who was trying to have her murdered. And, if I recall correctly, he also was allegedly abusing Jude.  She had to kill her son, you see, to protect him from falling into the hands of his abusers.

The Post discusses her stories in Someone lock up Gigi Jordan once and for all!.  But what do we have except another version of “I had to kill him to protect him”.

CNN is also reporting the story, noting:

“His fate was sealed,” assistant district attorney Matt Bogdanos said in opening statements. “He didn’t die fast. One by one, his vital organs shut down. It didn’t take minutes. It took hours to die.”

While Jude lay dying, Bogdanos said, Jordan sent an email to a financial adviser instructing him to transfer the $125,000 trust she set up for her son to her personal account.

It took him hours to die.  And the mother, who supposedly was attempting suicide, transferred money out of his account while he was dying.  It’s not like the police arrived just in time to save the mother from her pills, either:

The exact time of the boy’s death could not be determined, but Jude’s body temperature was 80 degrees, suggesting that when police arrived, he had been dead for 8 to 14 hours, Bogdanos said.

Sadly, Jude’s mother appears to have been a part of the “cure at all costs” community.  The New York Times is also reporting.

For several years, Ms. Jordan took him to medical specialists across the country, seeking a cure for his symptoms and subjecting him to experimental chemotherapy, injections of powerful steroids and filtering his blood to counteract autoimmune disorders.

How much did the false hope sold by charlatans play into this murder?  We may never know.  Jude died in 2010 at age 8.  He grew up during the height of the “better dead than autistic” rhetoric.

Jude’s mother is reportedly using her defense to obtain a manslaughter conviction rather than murder.  She’s quoted as calling this a “mercy killing”.

This is no mercy killing.  This is murder.  Brutal murder.  I hope the jury sees through Ms. Jordan’s bizarre stories.

—

Matt Carey

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Mother who tried to kill her autistic daughter sentenced: 10 to 22 years

9 Oct

Isabelle Stapleton is an autistic teenager with extraordinary needs. She is also a teenager who will grow up without her mother, as her mother has been sentenced to 10 to 22 years for first degree child abuse. The mother was originally charged with murder, but she pled to the lesser child abuse charge. Details can be found at Mom who tried to kill daughter gets 10-22 years and Kelli Stapleton, who tried to kill autistic daughter, sentenced to minimum 10 years prison.

Here’s a quote from the prosecutor:

“My office strives to protect our most vulnerable victims,” she said. “In this case, Isabelle’s autism did not mean she deserved less protection. Her life has value, and she deserves justice for the attempt on her life. The right outcome was achieved in this case. The defendant was sentenced as recommended by our state’s sentencing guidelines, and justice was obtained for Isabelle.”

It is difficult to find words to discuss cases of murder and for me especially attempted murder of the disabled. As the parent of an autistic kid with very great challenges, this story affects me personally. The disabled are at a great risk of abuse–including from their caregivers. We can not excuse or diminish what Isabelle’s mother tried to do. What she did do. We do this because it is right, not because of loyalty to one group over another as many have described this.

Online one can find very active discussions about this case. Mrs. Stapleton’s friends have jumped forward to defend her. Others, possibly after seen “Dr. Phil” cover this story are also out there. Lot’s of people downplaying what this was–attempted murder. People using Isabelle’s disability to diminish the acts of her mother. People who see loyalty first not to the parents, but to the guilty. One can now find people attacking the father. Everyone is at fault…except the mother. The person who tried to kill Isabelle.

If loyalty is to come into play in this discussion, our first loyalty as parents is not to our fellow parents. Just as Isabelle’s mother’s first loyalty was to the protection of her daughter, ours is to the protection of our children and autistics like our children.

And for those who see great sympathy for fellow parents, consider this. How would you feel if your spouse killed or tried to kill you child? You want to feel loyalty to a parent, Isabelle’s father now has to raise a family alone. Isabelle’s siblings now have to grow up without a mother. It isn’t the court who took their mother away. It’s the mother who left them by her actions.

For those who think that by accepting that justice was served when Isabelle’s mother was sentenced we diminish the challenges of the mother: you are wrong. We can have the discussion of how difficult it is to be a parent. How difficult it is to be the parent of a disabled child. That conversation must start with the challenges and needs of the child. And what greater responsibility do we have than to protect our children’s lives?

—
By Matt Carey

Sentencing expected for mother who attempted to murder her autistic daughter

7 Oct

Isabelle Stapleton is an autistic teenager who survived an attempted murder by her mother.  The mother has pled guilty to a lesser charge and is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday, reports SeattlePi.com

Sentence expected for mother of autistic teen

Retracted: Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data

5 Oct

About two months ago an autism parent published a study: a “reanalysis” of a CDC dataset. That study: Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data.

Here’s a screenshot of how the article looks online today (click to enlarge):

BadStudyRetracted

The retraction reads:

The Editor and Publisher regretfully retract the article [1] as there were undeclared competing interests on the part of the author which compromised the peer review process. Furthermore, post-publication peer review raised concerns about the validity of the methods and statistical analysis, therefore the Editors no longer have confidence in the soundness of the findings. We apologise to all affected parties for the inconvenience caused.

Previously, the editors had an “expression of concern” about the article:

The Publisher of this article [1] has serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions because of possible undeclared competing interests of the author and peer reviewers. The matter is undergoing investigation. In the meantime, readers are advised to treat the reported conclusions of this study with caution.

Further action will be taken, if appropriate, once our investigation is complete.

Comment on

Brian Hooker. Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young African American boys: a reanalysis of CDC data. Translational Neurodegeneration 2014, 3:16.

An excellent discussion of this study and the questions raised by it can be found at MMR, the CDC and Brian Hooker: A Guide for Parents and the Media

—
By Matt Carey

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Brian Deer’s original 2004 Channel 4 report on Andrew Wakefield: MMR: What they didn’t tell you

5 Oct

When Andrew Wakefield presented his hypothesis linking autism to the MMR vaccine in 2014 1998, he fueled a vaccine scare that is still alive today. It wasn’t until 6 years later that specifics about Mr. Wakefield’s actions were to surface. First in a newspaper story by Brian Deer (Revealed: MMR research scandal). Later that year in a BBC Channel 4 investigation: “MMR What they didn’t tell you.” I’ve never seen that Channel 4 program. Until today. Mr. Deer has placed it on YouTube. In three parts.

Part 1 introduces the topic. The MMR scare, the Wakefield 1998 Lancet paper and the press conference and the Royal Free’s video given out to the press. A discussion with an epidemiologist about the fact that there was nothing in Mr. Wakefield’s own work to support the triple MMR vaccine. Which leads us to the Wakefield patent for a substance that could be used as a vaccine–a vaccine which could only reasonably be expected to make a profit if the existing measles vaccine were considered unsafe–and as an autism “cure”.

Mr. Deer speaks with Ian Bruce, a researcher who worked with Andrew Wakefield on the patent. “The interpretation of that is quite clear to me..and that is that they have a vaccine for measles. Which presumably is an alternative to the existing vaccine.”

The thing is, the public was not told that Mr. Wakefield and the Royal Free had these commercial interests prior to Mr. Deer’s show.

Part 2 discusses the patent–the cure and vaccine aspects. The idea was that measles virus would be injected into a mouse. Those would be extracted, frozen, thawed, mixed with human cells, and injected into pregnant goats. The colostrum (part of the goat’s milk) would then form the basis of this vaccine/cure substance.

Sound like a strange idea to you? Well, Mr. Deer interviews medical experts who also think so. “the whole technique doesn’t make sense”. “It’s not credible”. “It’s strange”.

Mr. Deer tries to interview Dr. Roy Pounder, Mr. Wakefield’s former supervisor at the Royal Free. Mr. Pounder at first agrees then refuses to be interviewed.

Mr. Deer then goes to American and interviews Hugh Fudenberg, collaborator with Mr. Wakefield and co-inventor on the patent. Mr. Fudenberg at the time was charging up to $750 an hour to see and treat autistic children. He too considers Mr. Wakefield’s treatment to be unfounded. However, Mr. Fudenberg had a cure of his own, made from his own bone marrow.

Mr. Deer discusses some of the criticism of Mr. Wakefield’s work, including a statement from someone who worked in the Royal Free Hospital, including a comment that the work amounted to abuse.

Part 3 includes a discussion with Nick Chadwick, a student in Mr. Wakefield’s laboratory during the MMR/Autism research. Mr. Chadwick tested the tissues for measles virus, and found there was none in the autistic children being seen by Mr. Wakefield’s team. Also interviewed was Ian Bruce, a colleague of Mr. Wakefield’s, and also a supervisor for Nick Chadwick. Both Chadwick and Bruce are highly confident that if there were measles virus in the tissues, they would have detected it.

Mr. Deer discusses the 2000 measles outbreak in Ireland. He interviews the parents of one of the children who died in that outbreak. For those who keep saying that measles is mild, that in first world countries no one dies or is injured, here’s what a child dying of measles looks like in the first world. She took 11 months to die.

Result_of_Wakefields_Scare

Mr. Deer then goes to America to find and try to speak with Mr. Wakefield. Mr. Wakefield was listed as “research director” for Jeff Bradstreet’s clinic in Florida, but wasn’t there. The Bradstreet clinic had a host of supplements that one could purchase to “treat” autism. Mr. Deer eventually finds Mr. Wakefield at an Autism Society of America convention. Whereupon Mr. Wakefield runs away.

By the way–Thank you ASA for no longer inviting Andrew Wakefield to speak.

This investigative report together with the Sunday Times articles earlier in 2004 made a huge impact at the time. I know as I lived through it. The retraction of interpretation published by most of Mr. Wakefield’s co-authors on the 1998 Lancet paper (since fully retracted by the journal), was a big statement that this work was not solid. Of course, Brian Deer would eventually go on to win a U.K. Press Award for his MMR journalism and Mr. Wakefield would eventually be found to have been unethical in his research and struck off the register (lose his medical license).

The embedded version below should go through all three parts in sequence.

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Autism Science Foundation Named as a Top Rated Nonprofit by Great Nonprofits

2 Oct

The Autism Science Foundation funds research related to autism.  They have been named as a “Top-Rated Nonprofit” by Great Nonprofits.  Below is the overview from the announcement website.

Mission:

The Autism Science Foundation supports autism research by providing funding and other assistance to scientists and organizations conducting, facilitating, publicizing and disseminating autism research. The organization also provides information about autism to the general public and serves to increase awareness of autism spectrum disorders and the needs of individuals and families affected by autism.

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Results:

ASF has awarded over one million dollars in funding to scientists doing autism research since our founding in 2009. We also provide travel awards for autism stakeholders to attend the International Meeting for Autism Research each year.

We launched an awareness campaign to encourage brain tissue donation so scientists can investigate the neural underpinnings of autism spectrum disorders.

ASF advocated successfully for a new medical classification code for autistic wandering, which became possible after the ASF-funded wandering study published in the journal Pediatrics.

ASF board members and staff are frequently sought after by major national media (CNN, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, etc) to comment on autism related issues.

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By Matt Carey

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