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Was Dr. Wakefield the complainant in his own GMC case?

19 Feb

Pop quiz: of these two people, who was the first to request that the General Medical Council (GMC) investigate Dr. Andrew Wakefield

a) Brian Deer
b) Dr. Andrew Wakefield?

Ah–trick question! Brian Deer didn’t ask the GMC to investigate Dr. Wakefield. Mr. Deer offered and gave information to the GMC, but, it turns out, only after Dr. Wakefield called for an investigation.

Let me start by saying I hesitated to publish this post as it will be just make it seem like there is a real controversy here. There isn’t. But after noting that the addendum to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) complaint filed against Brian Deer included citations to LeftBrainRightBrain I decided to check into the “complainant” question.

Here’s the PCC complaint. Here’s the addendum.

There is a long “forensic analysis” argument to make the case that supposedly Brian Deer was the complainant. This struck me odd. Why do a “forensic” argument, unless you don’t have substantial proof.

In the matter of Dr Wakefield and the GMC, and based upon forensic analysis of all the available documentary evidence, one is entitled to believe that Mr. Deer was the original and only substantive complainant to the GMC, whether or not he was the ‘Complainant’ who instructed the legal prosecution of the case (which was the GMC through its lawyers Field Fisher Waterhouse).

OK, Brian Deer was the complainant, whether or not he was the ‘Complainant’. Everyone got that? Clear as mud?

It wasn’t to me, so I contacted the General Medical Council to ask a simple question:

I am sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you could help with a question. Is it public knowledge whether Mr. Brian Deer was a “complainant” for the Wakefield case? Was there any “complainant” or was this case brought forward by the GMC itself?

I received a very simple answer:

Dear Sir/Madam

The General Medical Council can act in response to complaints about doctors but we do not require someone to make a formal complaint to us before we can act. We can in fact initiate action against doctors of our own volition. This enables us to launch an investigation in response to publicly expressed concerns about the conduct of doctors, whether or not those concerns have been directly and formally referred to us.

The case against Dr Wakefield, Professor Walker-Smith and Professor Murch was brought by the GMC there was no complainant in this case.

I hope you find this information helpful and if you have any further queries relating to this case please do not hesitate to contact me.

When I asked if I could make this public, I was informed that this information is already public. Yes, I forgot the fact that Brian Deer had a letter from the GMC’s attorneys already. That is from May, 2005. I guess this whole, “he’s a complainant even if he isn’t a Complainant” thing has been going on for some time.

The “forensic analysis” seems to rest on the fact that Brian Deer has communicated with the GMC. There doesn’t seem to be any actual complaint filed, but, as we are told:

But what Deer does not reveal is that on February 25, 2004, three days after his article attacking Wakefield had been published in the Sunday Times, he had written to the GMC…

Yes, according to this timeline, Brian Deer published his article and then contacted the GMC 3 days later. It is characterized as a “spontaneous” communication in the complaint. As in, Brian Deer just out of the blue decided he needed to contact the GMC.

Dr. Wakefield left out an important part of the timeline. Namely, his own call for a GMC investigation. Here is a timeline:

February 22, 2004, Brian Deer’s article, Revealed: MMR research scandal is published.

February 23, 2004: Dr Wakefield states, “I’d welcome inquiry”

“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.”

Two days later, on February 25, 2004: Brian Deer emails the GMC. This appears to be the first contact between Mr. Deer and the GMC. According to the excerpt in the PCC complaint filed by Dr. Wakefield:

email from Brian Deer to Tim Cox-Brown, Caseworker GMC, 12.16 pm 2.25.04. This is a sixpage letter concluding with the statement “As a matter of public duty, I write to offer this outline of my main findings, and to offer the GMC my fullest cooperation in getting to the bottom of these matters”.

Which, according to Dr. Wakefield, makes Brian Deer the “complainant” in the GMC hearing:

This reads as a spontaneous and intentional contact with the GMC for the purpose of requesting to put before them the substance of his complaint and in fact, doing so i.e. making a complaint.

Spontaneous? I guess if you leave out critical details like Dr. Wakefield’s own call for investigation. As I titled the post, couldn’t one say that Dr. Wakefield is the complainant? After all, it is Dr. Wakefield who appears to have called for the investigation.

Dr. Krigsman “steps down” from position at Thoughtful House?

18 Feb

In an article in the Times Online, the departure of Dr. Wakefield from Thoughtful House is confirmed, but also a statement is made:

It has also emerged that Arthur Krigsman, director of the gastroenterology clinic at Thoughtful House, has stepped down in recent weeks. The departure is not thought to be directly related to Dr Wakefield’s situation

Dr. Krigsman is still listed on the Thoughtful House website, where he is still listed as director of the gastroenterology clinic.

Dr. Krigsman is the director of the gastroenterology clinic at Thoughtful House Center for Children in Austin, Texas.

I am unclear on whether “stepping down” means he is still with Thoughtful House but not as director, or whether he has left Thoughtful House altogether.

Dr. Krigsman is the lead author on a paper which came out recently purporting to support Dr. Wakefield’s research.

Andrew Wakefield vs the PCC

18 Feb

On the 14th March 2009, David Kirby published a Huffington Post piece which stated:

Dr. Andrew Wakefield – the British physician who was accused in February by the Sunday Times of London of altering data in a 1998 paper on autistic children, bowel disease and the MMR vaccine – has filed a formal complaint against the freelance journalist who wrote the article.

….

Mr. Deer has failed miserably as a reporter and has done great harm to me and many others conducting autism research,” Wakefield said in the release.

The most sensational accusation against him printed in the Sunday Times held that Wakefield had altered and manipulated data on many of the 12 children who were written up in the paper.

David’s piece – as can be seen from the words of Wakefield above – show Wakefield as fairly salvering to get at Brian Deer and indeed, the Times stories were removed from their website. Wakefield reported this as the Times tacit admission the stories were wrong. This drew a stinging response from the Times who immediately republished some of the stories on its website indicating the truth which was that the stories were only removed at first as a courtesy to the PCC, not to Andrew J Wakefield.

As Mike notes in the above linked story, Wakefield is often the author of his own misfortune as he bumbles from one self created mess to another.

And now I’ve heard news that Wakefield no longer wants the PCC to hear the complaint he made until after he has appealed to the courts. In a private email corresponence with Brian Deer, he told me:

At my request, the PCC was last week asked if Wakefield will now pursue his complaint against The Sunday Times. His publicist James Moore, replied on his behalf. I can’t give you the email, as it is not for me to do that, but I can tell you that he has asked for the matter to be deferred until after any appeal to the courts by Wakefield.

Appeal? Why does Wakefield want to appeal? Wasn’t it he who stated:

I have no need of continued registration with the GMC…

If thats so, then why is he going to appeal? Could this be yet another delaying tactic by a man who has made something of a career out of delaying the game when it (as it always has) goes against him? After all, who can forget his now infamous bowing out of the libel case he pursued against Brian Deer? Particularly Justice Eady’s response to him when he tried to delay _that_ case;

It thus appears that the Claimant [Wakefield] wishes to use the existence of the libel proceedings for public relations purposes, and to deter other critics, while at the same time isolating himself from the downside of such litigation, in having to answer a substantial defence of justification.

And so here we are yet again – Wakefield wants to delay proceedings _he_ initiated because he got hammered by the GMC. Brian also said:

I’ve had these issues hanging over my head for six years. Moreover,Wakefield’s allegations (and those of Mr Moore) are published online as part of a campaign against me, while two Sunday Times reports carry tags referring to his complaint.

The courts have made clear, in defamation cases, that prompt action is a hallmark of a genuine complaint. Wakefield previously sought summary adjudication of his dozens of complaints, demanding that they be ruled on in advance of his GMC hearing and without our full reply being received. Now
he’s changed tack and plainly wishes to abandon his complaint without the penalty of saying so.

Quite.

Andrew Wakefield Resigns from Thoughtful House?

18 Feb

According to several anti-vax Yahoo news groups, Andrew Wakefield has resigned from Thoughtful House.

This is apparently the Thoughtful House statement:

The needs of the children we serve must always come first. All of us at Thoughtful House are grateful to Dr. Wakefield for the valuable work he has done here. We fully support his decision to leave Thoughtful House in order to make sure that the controversy surrounding the recent findings of the General Medical Council does not interfere with the important work that our dedicated team of clinicians and researchers is doing on behalf of children with autism and their families. All of us at Thoughtful House continue to fight every day for the recovery of children with developmental disorders. We will continue to do our very best to accomplish our mission by combining the most up-to-date treatments and important clinical research that will help to shape the understanding of these conditions that are affecting an ever-increasing number of children worldwide.

I’ve left a question mark ove this as there’s no official word of this on the Thoughtful House website and Andrew Wakefield is still listed amongst its staff.

The Document SafeMinds Doesn’t Want You to Read

17 Feb

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:

Our view on fighting disease: Vaccine fear-mongering endangers child health
When ‘herd immunity’ declines, deadly illnesses make a comeback.

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.

A Nasty Little Franchise

15 Feb

Wakefield may have the highest public profile but he is just one of many who seek to profit from autism and he is by no means the worst. Remember the Geiers? This father and son team from Silver Springs in Maryland have an unsavoury record that makes Wakefield seem almost reasonable.

Wakefield breached the terms of his hospital’s ethics committee. The Geiers, operating out of the family home, invented their own IRB and granted themselves ethical approval for experiments on children with a powerful drug called Lupron. Lupron is used to treat precocious puberty, a rare condition in young children. It is also used is also used to treat prostate cancer in men, to treat endometriosis in women, and to chemically castrate sex offenders. The Geiers use it on autistic children and young adults.

Kathleen Seidel has catalogued their bad science, plagiarism, inflated academic resumes, the fraudulent IRB, cruel and unnecessary blood draws, attempted deals with TAP pharmaceuticals and the Lupron Protocol itself on her Neurodiversity website. Trine Tsouderos at the Chicago Tribune covers all the basics in her recent profile of the Geiers,  ‘Miracle drug’ called junk science.

The most disturbing part of Tsouderos’ story was the news that the Geiers were rolling out a franchise for others to cash in on their unproven and dangerous protocol. According to their website they offer the following

  • Genetic Markers (DNA Fragile X Syndrome, Blood Chromosome, Chromosome Microarrays, DNA Rett Syndrome, Angelman/Prader Willi Syndrome)
  • Mitochondrial Dysfunction (Carnitine, Lactic Acid, Ammonia, Hand Muscle Testing)
  • Hormone Imbalances (Total Testosterone, Free Testosterone, DHEA, DHEA-S, Androstenedione, Dihydrotestosterone, Total Estrogens, Estrone, Estradiol, ACTH, Aldosterone, Prolactin, FSH, LH)
  • Oxidative Stress/Inflammation (Neopterin, Lipid Peroxides)
  • Detoxification Pathways (Glutathione, Cystathionine, Homocysteine, Methionine)
  • Immune System Function (Immune Deficiency Profile, HLA-Testing, Immune Complexes, Food Allergies, Celiac’s Disease)
  • Heavy Metals (Porphyrins, Blood Metals, Urinary Metals)
  • Neurological Dysfunction (Brain MRI scans, Brain SPECT scans)
  • General Health Status (Comphrensive Metabolic Panel)

And this is the team that will deliver these services.

  • Maryland: Mark Geier MD, geneticist and David Young MD, Obstetrician and gynaecologist.
  • Springfield, llinois: Mary Young MD, psychiatrist and neurologist.
  • Ft. Lauderdale, Florida: David Claymore, neuroradiologist.
  • Parsippany, New Jersey: Paul King, industrial chemist.
  • Indianapolis, Indiana: Melissa Troutman, radiologic technologist.
  • Dallas, Texas: Janet Kern, RN, neuroscientist.
  • Louisville, Kentucky: Janet Pope, RN

And that is it. The only member of the American Academy of Pediatrics is Mary Young who has worked as a child psychiatrist. There are no board certified endocrinologists or anybody with the board certification to diagnose and treat precocious puberty in children.

And what of David Geier BA? He remains vice-president of the non-profit 501(c)3 Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc. and the non-profit 501(c)3 CoMeD, Inc. Much of the profit from the franchise will be directed to “these corporations dedicated to
autism research and advocacy efforts.” sure. So families or their insurers will be paying for treatments for their children that have been condemned by real autism experts as junk science. And the profits from this enterprise will be used to fund more junk science. Do they have a GMC in America? Do they want to borrow ours?

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Andrew Wakefield – I have no need of continued registration

14 Feb

In a remarkable and somewhat odd statement put out by Andrew Wakefield, he states:

I have no need of continued registration with the GMC…

Which is somewhat contrary to his statement of 2004 that;

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…

Why would someone insist upon being heard by an organisation he holds so little respect for he longer wants to be a member?

During the rest of the statement, he provides thanks to the support of his economic fan base – the parents, imcluding no doubt the parents of the children whom counr amongst the 11 counts of sticking tubes and needles into developmentally-challenged children without ethical approval, and nine counts of doing so contrary to the children’s wellbeing.

In a private email Brian Deer stated his opinion – which I share – that:

There can’t by any doubt that with four charges of dishonesty, including research and financial misconduct, that he knows he will be erased from the medical register.

Just _one_ of these substantiated charges would be enough to get a GP struck off. With the amount Andrew Wakefield has against his name it would be a small miracle if this didn’t happen and he is pre-emptively striking back at the GMC, declaring he doesn’t care if they do strip him of his right to be referred to as ‘doctor’.

I’ll leave the last words to Brian Deer, the man who single handedly brought down Andrew Wakefield:

His latest statement illustrates a more sinister aspect of Andrew Wakefield’s conduct: the mismatch between what has occurred outside the hearing and what has gone on inside. Outside – appealing to his economic base – he claims he is a victim of sinister forces – the drug industry and government and so forth – when he’s not the slightest evidence of this, (and neither have I). He was taken down by an old fashioned journalistic investigation, executed in the public interest.

And yet, inside the hearing, his behaviour was quite different. He called no witnesses whatsoever. While the prosecution called a parent who provided devastating evidence, he didn’t risk putting any of the ringleaders outside the building into the witness chair, where they could be cross-examined over how vulnerable children came to be brought to a hospital with no department or reputation for evaluating developmental disorders, and where doctors seemed all-but-entirely uninterested in the children’s futures. Nor did he put any questions whatsoever to the government’s vaccine chief, despite Wakefield supporters turning up for a much-hyped showdown. Nothing was asked, because Wakefield has nothing.

What the Wakefield project was all about was getting into the small intestines and spines of children without anybody finding out the reason. *And this is where, rightly, that project has brought him.*

Wakefield Monkey Study Withdrawn by Editor

12 Feb

In case you missed it, Dr. Wakefield is a co-author on a series of studies vaccinating macaques. They have been touted as “blockbuster” studies, and also critiqued sharply.

With a hat-tip to KWombles for the information: The paper has been withdrawn

If you check the Neurotoxicology website, the paper now has “Withdrawn” added to the tile:

“WITHDRAWN: Delayed acquisition of neonatal reflexes in newborn primates receiving a thimerosal-containing Hepatitis B vaccine: Influence of gestational age and birth weight”

with the statement at the bottom:

This article has been withdrawn at the request of the editor. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause.

The full Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy.

Note to users: Withdrawn Articles in Press are proofs of articles which have been peer reviewed and initially accepted, but have since been withdrawn before being published in this journal. Reasons for withdrawal may be due to a decision by the author and/or editor, accidental duplication of an article elsewhere, or because the content contravenes the Elsevier publishing policy in some way. Withdrawn Articles in Press are only visible to users when following an external link, e.g., an end user following a PubMed or DOI link. Such Withdrawn Articles in Press are not searchable or otherwise available in ScienceDirect.

If you follow the link for the Elsevier policy on withdrawing papers, you will find these statements:

Article Withdrawal: Only used for Articles in Press which represent early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors, or may have been accidentally submitted twice. Occasionally, but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like.

and

Article Withdrawal

Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article(s), or are determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors, may be “Withdrawn” from ScienceDirect. Withdrawn means that the article content (HTML and PDF) is removed and replaced with a HTML page and PDF simply stating that the article has been withdrawn according to the Elsevier Policy on Article in Press Withdrawal with a link to the current policy document.

Anthony Cox published in PJ Online

11 Feb

Our very own Anthony Cox was published today in PJ Online (gateway to the world of pharmacy and medicines) concerning the MMR saga. I’ll copy and paste a key paragraph then urge you to go read the whole piece which is an excellent summation of events thus far.

In US court testimony in 2007, Chadwick stated that he had tested all the samples from Wakefield’s ASD children and found no MVV present. Wakefield was made aware of this before the publication of the 1998 paper, but saw fit not to draw attention to this negative finding that undermined his hypothesis.

Wakefield’s Lancet study is like cold fusion?

9 Feb

Hey, I didn’t say it. Mike Adams, “The Health Ranger”, out at NaturalNews.com said it in a blog post called, The Lancet retraction of vaccine autism paper condemned as Big Pharma conspiracy to discredit Dr. Wakefield.

I’ll do the geek stuff below, but let’s just say, Cold Fusion is synonymous with weak (or bad) science touted followed by a press conference that made claims which were amazing if true…but they weren’t.

For most of the world, comparing research to cold fusion is not a compliment. But NaturalNews.com doesn’t see it that way. After the announcement of Cold Fusion:

The conventional physics community went berserk. They attacked Fleischmann and Pons relentlessly, attempting to destroy their character and any scientific credibility they might have held. They paraded a gang of “hot fusion” scientists through the mainstream media, telling everyone it was “impossible” to create nuclear fusion at tabletop temperatures. Through a repetition of lies, they convinced the world that Fleischmann and Pons were frauds.

Yep. Just like Big Physics killed cold fusion, Big Pharma is out to kill the MMR/Autism link.

As I said recently, just when I think the Wakefield/MMR story can’t get stranger, it does.

For the geeks:

Fusion is the process where nuclei are, well, fused together to form the nuclei of new atoms. For example, one can fuse two duterium (hydrogen nuclei with a proton and a neutron) nuclei and get helium. People study fusion because it might give us a huge source of energy. Fusion reactors are big, expensive creations that raise the temperature of the nuclei very high, and have yet to become a viable energy source.

Cold fusion was an idea that under the right conditions, fusion could be induced near room temperature. Two of the researchers who “discovered” cold fusion held a large press conference and touted their study well beyond what their data could support.

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