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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.

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By Matt Carey

ABC News covers Brian Hooker’s study: Hooker “manipulated the data and manipulated the media in a very savvy and sophisticated way.”

10 Oct

A recent ABC story (How a Now-Retracted Autism Study Went Viral — Again) discussed Brian Hooker’s flawed and retracted study.  Here are the first few paragraphs:

An autism study that was slammed by experts and retracted this week by its publisher is still alive and well on the Internet, thanks to what critics are calling a perfect storm of lax publishing standards.

Experts say the lone study author played fast and loose with statistics to show a link between autism and the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella, some experts going as far as saying that the author deliberately did this, but the dubious results took off online anyway, quickly going viral.

“There are always going to be those people at the edges of science who want to shout because they don’t want to believe what the data are showing,” said Dr. Margaret Moon, a pediatrician and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She said she thought the study author “manipulated the data and manipulated the media in a very savvy and sophisticated way.”

“It’s not good. It’s not fair. It’s not honest. But it’s savvy,” Moon said.

Good to see this coming from outside the blogOsphere. Let’s pull one sentence out for emphasis, shall we?

She said she thought the study author “manipulated the data and manipulated the media in a very savvy and sophisticated way.”

When people ask about data manipulation and the MMR/Autism story, there it is.

The story continues at ABC: How a Now-Retracted Autism Study Went Viral — Again. Included in the story is a CDC statement that I’ve seen before but warrants quoting here.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statement regarding Brian Hooker’s reanalysis of its 2004 study Aug. 27, 2014

There was no cover up. The study did not find any statistically significant associations between age at MMR vaccination and autism. In the CDC paper, similar proportions of case (children with autism) and control children (no autism) had been vaccinated before 18 months or before 24 months. While slightly more children with autism (93.4%) than children without autism (90.6%) were vaccinated between 24 and 36 months, this was most likely a result of immunization requirements for preschool special education program attendance in children with autism.

As this topic was so sensitive and complex, the CDC study published in Pediatrics in February 2004 underwent clearance at CDC, the usual process of internal review for scientific accuracy that all CDC papers undergo. In addition, before submission to the journal, the manuscript was reviewed by five experts outside of CDC and an independent CDC statistician (see acknowledgements section of the paper for specific names). Finally, all reputable journals undergo peer-review of all submitted papers before final publication.

The 2004 CDC study was designed as a case-control study. This means, children with autism (cases) were specifically identified, and children without autism (controls) were identified to be similar to the children with autism in other respects. When data are collected in a specific way for a specific type of statistical analysis (a case-control study in this instance), using those data in a different type of analysis can produce confusing results. Because the methods in Dr. Hooker’s reanalysis were not described in detail, it is hard to speculate why his results differed from CDC’s.

Since the 2004 Pediatrics paper, CDC has conducted additional studies of vaccines and autism. In 2004 the Institute of Medicine reviewed published and unpublished findings from the US and other countries and concluded that there was no association between MMR vaccination and autism. In 2011, another IOM committee reviewed additional research, and once again found that evidence favored rejection of this association.

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By Matt Carey

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

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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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Andrew Wakefield apparently doesn’t understand the first rule of documentaries

27 Sep

Andrew Wakefield has tried to make a new career for himself as a film maker. He runs a website producing YouTube and Vimeo videos in which he describes himself as “director”. He also serves as presenter. He has finished his documentary on the murder of Alex Spourdalakis, even though his fundraiser fell well short of its goal (“$9,532USD RAISED OF $200,000 GOAL”).

If one follows the link above to the Mr. Wakefield’s Autism Media Channel, one will find a trailer for his “Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis” video. The narration talks about him being treated “in the words of witnesses…like an animal…” and at 26 seconds in one sees this image:

ThatWouldBeHisMother.

An image from that same video is also seen at about 20 seconds into the trailer.

As one who has followed various stories in the autism community I know that video well. I know it is taken from a video that made the news. A video about a completely different autistic.

Rotenberg

That video can be found on YouTube. It’s a story of an autistic at the Judge Rotenberg Center. I’m unaware of Mr. Wakefield speaking out on the treatment at JRC, by the way.

Perhaps in the full documentary Mr. Wakefield uses the Judge Rotenberg Video and tells his audience that it is a completely different story than the one he is discussing. But he doesn’t in the trailer. In fact, he cut the frame so that one doesn’t see where the video originated.

First rule of documentary film making–document. Don’t make things up. Don’t pull in film from some other event. The second rule would probably be: the film maker should not be part of the story. Mr. Wakefield applied his “Autism Team” to give their brand of support to the Spourdalakis family. I do question whether Mr. Spourdalakis would be alive today without that interference. Without the false hope. A question one can bet will not be addressed in an unbiased fashion, if at all, in Mr. Wakefield’s documentary.

I’ll note something else odd in that trailer. Immediately after that clip from the JRC video, one hears someone talk about “exorcism needed to be performed” and “he was possessed”. What that is all about is as much your guess as mine. Is this an example of the bad support Mr. Spourdalakis was getting before Mr. Wakefield? The type of support he got from Mr. Wakefield’s “Autism Team”?

Let’s consider another of Mr. Wakefield’s recent videos. In it, Mr. Wakefield presents a little more of the audio Brian Hooker claims are from phone calls he secretly taped with a CDC researcher. Let’s assume this is correct. At about 56 seconds in, Mr. Wakefield shows us a silhouetted figure gesturing while the recording goes on.

FauxThompson

Dramatic, isn’t it? Looks like Team Wakefield got someone from the CDC into a room, spilling secrets galore. It’s like a bad spy movie.

Looks to this observer like the man in the silhouette is an actor, not the CDC researcher. Why? Well, the face doesn’t look like the same person. The actor isn’t wearing glasses, the most recent photos of the researcher show him with glasses. The movements of the actor don’t really match the words in the audio. The audio quality is the same as in the phone call, but the actor doesn’t have a phone. Why would he be talking on the phone if he’s in a room? Why not use a recorder in the room? One can go on and on.

Perhaps Mr. Wakefield felt that this was artistic license: he didn’t have that video, so he used an actor in a recreation of events. Except that in real documentaries, one tells the audience when one is doing a recreation.

This last bit is from another of Mr. Wakefield’s recent videos. Not really relevant to the question of how does one make a good documentary. Instead this goes to one of the common complaints one hears from Mr. Wakefield’s supporters: whether he or they can be accurately called anti-vaccine. I rarely use the term, by the way. Here’s an image from another of Mr. Wakefield’s recent videos. It’s the picture of a pregnant woman holding a vaccine. The CDC logo is overlayed on her bare stomach and flames are burning from that logo. I cropped the image to remove the text imposed upon it.

WakefieldVideo

How should we classify such an action? Is this an example of the methods of the “pro safe vaccine” community (as they sometimes like to be called)?

Mr. Wakefield’s new career as a film maker is an interesting choice. Frankly, he has a lot to learn.

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By Matt Carey

Andrew Wakefield loses frivolous defamation lawsuit. To pay court costs.

19 Sep

In 2011 the British Medical Journal (BMJ) published a series of articles about Andrew Wakefield and his efforts to promote the idea of the MMR vaccine causing autism. Brian Deer has a list of links on his website: Secrets of the MMR scare. Here are just a few of those links:

Piltdown medicine – the missing link between MMR and autism

Editorial: Wakefield’s article linking MMR with autism was fraudulent

How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed

How the vaccine crisis was meant to make money

The Lancet’s two days to bury bad news

Nearly a year after those were published, Andrew Wakefield took issue with his work being declared fraudulent and sued for defamation. Not in the UK, where the laws are very favorable to him. No, instead he chose his home state of Texas. Mr. Wakefield’s original suit was denied on the grounds that he did not have the standing to bring suit against the BMJ in Texas. Mr. Wakefield appealed. And lost.

In the recent appeal the judgment the court stated:

This is an appeal from the judgment signed by the trial court on August 3, 2012. Having reviewed the record and the parties’ arguments, the Court holds that there was no reversible error in the trial court’s judgment. Therefore, the Court affirms the trial court’s judgment. The appellant shall pay all costs relating to this appeal, both in this Court and the court below.

The full judgment can also be found online.

[Edit to add–see the discussion below. It is quite possible that I did not read this correctly]

If I read this correctly, Mr. Wakefield will be paying the costs the BMJ team incurred as well as his own. And, not only in the appeal, but also “in the court below”, which I read to be in the original suit. To put it simply–Mr. Wakefield may be in the position of paying the costs going back to when he first filed his defamation case.

The BMJ team and Mr. Wakefield’s team were four attorneys each. I would expect that Mr. Wakefield’s costs run into many tens of thousands of dollars. I would expect that the BMJ’s costs are likely even higher.

Which brings us to the obvious question: with a gamble of this size, what would this appeal have accomplished had Mr. Wakefield won? Well, for starters the BMJ team’s Anti SLAPP suit would have moved forward. Texas had just enacted Anti-SLAPP legislation at the time Mr. Wakefield filed suit (as an aside, if I recall correctly this is one of the blunders of Mr. Wakefield’s suit–waiting until after the new law was in place to file). SLAPP stands for Strategic lawsuit against public participation. The BMJ suit essentially puts for the idea that Mr. Wakefield’s defamation suit was a cynical attempt to stop the BMJ (and others) from voicing public criticism about Mr. Wakefield’s actions. Mr. Wakefield faced heavy penalties had the Anti-SLAPP suit gone forward and had the BMJ won.

This is the fourth time that Mr. Wakefield has attempted to “gag the media” as Mr. Deer puts it. And now the fourth time Mr. Wakefield has lost. One can never tell for certain, but it seems likely that Mr. Wakefield would have lost the Anti-SLAPP suit.

Let’s say Mr. Wakefield avoided an Anti-SLAPP judgment. He would have been able to bring his defamation case to court on the merits. Not on the merits of his scientific work, but on the question of whether the BMJ team could rightfully call his work fraudulent. A case the BMJ team certainly prepared for before going to press. And prepared to defend in the UK, where the laws are much more favorable to Mr. Wakefield. Which is to say, I suspect the BMJ felt strongly that they had checked all their facts closely and were well defended in any and all statements they made.

From my point of view, this defamation lawsuit was a vanity exercise by Mr. Wakefield. It got his name in the news. It may have slowed criticism of him for years. He got to look like a hero to his own community.

And he threw tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars down the tubes in the effort. Mr. Wakefield heads the “Strategic Autism Initiative” which has the purported goal of funding autism research. Last I checked the majority of the money collected for the SAI went to salaries. Mr. Wakefield’s being the lion’s share. Be that as it may, Mr. Wakefield had an option a few years ago: fund autism research or fund this lawsuit.

Well, we see his choice. And the result. Sure there may be a further appeal. Take it to the Texas Supreme Court and delay some more. And run up more bills to pay.

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By Matt Carey

An open letter to the National Whistleblowers Center: David Lewis and the outing of a CDC whistleblower

11 Sep
Dear National Whistleblowers Center,
 
I appreciate the work you do but I would like some clarification on recent events.
 
A gentleman came forward from the CDC to provide information about what he felt were inappropriately withheld results on an old autism study.  This gentleman guided someone outside the CDC to reproduce the result.  These results were published and with that publication a public relations campaign was started.  This is where your board member, David Lewis, comes into the story.  Mr. Lewis can be seen in the video produced.  That video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGOtDVilkUc
 
The original video was produced with the whistleblower’s name censored and his voice modified.  However, his gender was given, making it rather simple work for the CDC and everyone else to work out who this was (only one male was an author on the paper in question).  Within 3 days of the release of the video, the online version was replaced with the uncensored version you see now–the version with “whistleblower revealed” as a title.
 
Since that time the whistleblower has released a statement including noting
 
1) he never consented to having his phone calls taped
2) he never consented to having his identity released
3) it appears, thus, that the video was not shown to the whistleblower, so he could not have approved of the rather ugly race-baiting angle it took.
 
 
Here are some other problematic details in these events.
 
1) Mr. Lewis is in the employ of the organization which did this study, Focus Autism.  Both Mr. Lewis himself and his charity/church have been paid according to public tax forms from Focus Autism.
 
2) Mr. Lewis does not make this conflict of interest known in the video.
 
3) Mr. Lewis has a history of working with the director of the video, Andrew Wakefield.  This includes soliciting donations through Mr. Lewis’ church with the purpose of using those funds to support Mr. Wakefield. 
 
4) Mr. Wakefield has major conflicts of interest in this video as he is trying to rebuild the reputation he damaged with his unethical actions (as deemed by the U.K.’s General Medical Council).
 
5) These COI’s are not disclosed in the video, although most in the autism community are well aware of Mr. Wakefield’s.
 
6) The video takes a very ugly race-baiting approach.  It takes what the whistleblower suggests is a scientific dispute and frames it as CDC officials partaking in a new “Tuskegee” experiment an compares the CDC officials unfavorably to Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot.  This includes civil rights pioneer Marshalyn Yeagan-Allsopp.
 
Mr. Lewis has not issued a statement that I can find distancing himself from the actions of his team: the breach of confidentiality of the whistleblower nor the cynical use of the whistleblower for political and public relations gain by Mr. Wakefield.   I can not see how the treatment of this whistleblower by Mr. Lewis’ team can be construed as appropriate. In the video we can see Mr. Lewis making use of the opportunity for product placement of his book, “Science for Sale”.  Given Mr. Lewis’ tacit approval of this video, again one put together for his own benefactor Focus Autism, I see his actions as “opinion for sale”. 
 
I write for a website called LeftBrainRightBrain.co.uk.  You will see I have been highly critical of the actions of the team that outed this whistleblower.
 
Could I ask for a statement from your organization?  Do you believe these actions to be within the bounds of appropriate behavior for one working with a whistleblower?  If so, could you elaborate, because recording a whistleblower without his permission, outing a whistleblower, and using the whistleblower for such an ugly public relations campaign without his approval seem far outside the bounds to me.
 
I look forward to your reply,
Matt Carey

NOVA: Vaccines — Calling the Shots

9 Sep

The question of vaccine safety comes up a lot in the online autism parent community. The PBS program Nova is taking a look at vaccines and vaccine safety in a show “Calling the Shots”. As they point out, it is OK to question vaccine safety, but that is just the start of the conversation. The program airs tomorrow (September 10) at 9pm.

It looks like it will be an excellent program.

Here is the webpage for the show complete with a brief sneak preview:

Here is a 3 1/2 minute

here is a “behind the scenes” look at the show

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By Matt Carey

Harpocrates Speaks on: MMR, the CDC and Brian Hooker: A Guide for Parents and the Media

8 Sep

Todd W. over at Harpocrates Speaks has put together a FAQ like guide on the questions that come up with regards to recent research by Brian Hooker and the allegations Mr. Hooker has made about the CDC. That article is an excellent resource for people looking for some answers on this story. The article starts:

The anti-vaccine community has been in a tizzy lately over a supposed “CDC whistleblower”, Dr. William W. Thompson, who, according to them, revealed fraud at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). To bolster their claim, they point to a new study from one of their own, Brian S. Hooker, that purports to show evidence of an increased risk of autism among African American boys who receive their first MMR vaccine late. However, the claims appear to be hollow and unfounded, and so they have chosen to rely on emotional arguments that may sound convincing to those who are not familiar with the issues and people involved. In a truly egregious fashion, they have erroneously and cynically compared this whole thing to the Tuskegee syphilis study, and equated the CDC with Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, combined.

With that in mind, here is a brief FAQ for parents, news media and others to help them understand what the claims are and what the evidence actually says. The questions below have been raised or implied by anti-vaccine activists. Hopefully, this will prevent inaccurate reporting and help parents feel reassured about the MMR vaccine.

That FAQ can be found at MMR, the CDC and Brian Hooker: A Guide for Parents and the Media

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By Matt Carey

Online discussions discussing the recent CDC data “reanalysis” story

1 Sep

Educator/writer Liz Ditz often keeps a running summary of online discussions of trending topics. Below are some of her links. They are a few days old, but this gives you a starting place in case you wish to read multiple sources.

Posts discussing Hooker’s allegations, excluding anti-vaccine sources .

Timeline

August 8, 2014: Hooker paper published online

August 18, 2014: Focus Autism Press Release published online

August 18, 2014: Andrew Wakefield’s Autism Media Channel Video Alleging a CDC Whistleblower published online

August 22, 2014: Andrew Wakefield’s Autism Media Channel Video Naming William W. Thompson as “The CDC Whistleblower ” published online

  1. August 22, 2014,  Orac Knows at Respectful Insolence:  Brian Hooker proves Andrew Wakefield wrong about vaccines and autism

    Of course, the key finding in Brian Hooker’s paper is that Wakefield was wrong. Indeed, in this video, Wakefield even admits that he was mostly wrong about MMR and autism. Let that sink in again. He admits that he was mostly wrong about MMR and autism. OK, he says we were “partially right,” but the flip side of that is that he must have been mostly wrong.

  2. August 22, 2014, Reuben Gaines at The Poxes Blog: Andrew Jeremy Wakefield plays video director while African-American Babies die, or something

    Hooker is wrong in his assertions because the DeStefano paper did not leave out African-American children on purpose. Children were excluded from the analysis because of very legitimate and scientific reasons. They either were not the right age, did not have autism but some other neurodevelopment disorder, or were born outside of Georgia. Even if they were tossed into the analysis, DeStefano et al used a statistical analysis that took into account things like birth weight and mother’s age when analysing the data. They wanted to make sure that what they were seeing was most likely because of the MMR vaccine and not because of some other factor associated with autism.

  3. August 23, 2014,  Ren at Epidemiological: Directed Acyclic Graphs and the MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism.

    I’m very skeptical that Dr. Hooker’s simplified statistical approach can be better than DeStefano et al’s approach of conditional logistic regression. Conditional logistic regression has the advantage of being able to control for a multitude of confounders and effect modifiers.

  4. August 24, 2014, Liz Ditz at I Speak of Dreams: L’affaire CDC-MMR: Hooker, Wakefield, and Focus Autism Accuse African-American Senior CDC Researcher of Being A Race Traitor

    According to Hooker, Wakefield, and Focus Autism, a respected senior African-American physician-researcher is a race traitor and a mass murderer.

  5. August 25, 2014, Orac Knows at Respectful Insolence: The central conspiracy theory of the antivaccine movement 

    I can imagine three main possibilities for what happened. The first possibility from what I know is that Thompson had some sort of disagreement with his co-investigators, made the incredibly stupid—yes, stupid—decision to unburden himself to Brian Hooker, who, he must have known or should have known, is an antivaccine crank associated with Andrew Wakefield, and is now paying the price for that decision… The second possibility is that Thompson wanted to correct something Hooker was doing with the data and somehow let himself be drawn into saying things that could easily be taken out of context. The third, and (I hope) much less likely, possibility is that Thompson’s gone off the deep end and gone antivaccine.

  6. August 25,2014, David Gorski MD at Science Based Medicine: Did a high ranking whistleblower really reveal that the CDC covered up proof that vaccines cause autism in African-American boys?

    “What [Hooker] has done, apparently, is found grist for a perfect conspiracy theory to demonize the CDC, play the race card in a truly despicable fashion, and cast fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the CDC vaccination program, knowing that most of the white antivaccine activists who support hate the CDC so much that they won’t notice that even Hooker’s reanalysis doesn’t support their belief that vaccines caused the autism in their children. Meanwhile, there is no evidence, at least none, submitted by the antivaccine propagandists flogging this conspiracy theory, that there really was a CDC conspiracy to hide anything.

  7. August 25, 2014, ToddW at Harpocrates Speaks, Andrew Wakefield Tortures History

    I want to focus on some statements made by one Andrew Wakefield, the British doctor who committed scientific fraud, resulting in the full retraction of his 1998 case series study on MMR and the stripping of his medical license. Wakefield boldly added himself to the list of not only torturing science, but now adds to his accomplishments torturing history and ethics (granted, we already knew he was ethically challenged). You see, in his videos (here and here) about the alleged “whistleblower”, William Thompson,Wakefield compared the purported “cover-up” to the Tuskegee syphilis debacle. It’s a false comparison used simply to inflame people and claim the race card.

  8. August 25, 2014, Michael Simpson at Skeptical Raptor, Great CDC Coverup–suppressing evidence that MMR vaccines cause autism? cross-posted at at Daily Kos

    It’s clear what’s happening here. Thompson, through sheer ignorance or total incompetence may have had a conversation with Hooker. Given the fact that the antivaccination gang lacks any serious scientific evidence supporting their dogma that vaccines cause autism, they jump on anything, however tenuous, that makes it appear that all of the evidence that refutes their dogma should be thrown in the garbage.

  9. August 26, 2014, Orac Knows at Respectful Insolence: Hey, where is everybody? The “CDC whistleblower” manufactroversy continues apace

    Here it is, Tuesday already, and the antivaccine underground is still on full mental jacket alert over the biggest story the antivaccine movement has seen in a while. Fortunately, it’s a story that’s been largely ignored by the mainstream media, which tells me that maybe, just maybe, the mainstream media has figured out that it shouldn’t give undue credence to cranks.

  10. August 26 2014, Sullivan (Matt Carey) at LeftBrainRightBrain Autism, Atlanta, MMR: serious questions and also how Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield are causing damage to the autism communties

    A study relying largely on a small group of subjects (about 20) with the conclusion that more work is needed. Sounds vaguely familiar. And, as we will see, Mr. Hooker has teamed up with Andrew Wakefield to put out a video where they jump past the whole this indicates more research is needed through this is absolute evidence of MMR causing autism directly to the CDC are engaging in a racist experiment sacrificing children to autism. It’s like the events around Mr. Wakefield’s 1997 Lancet paper cranked up to 11.

  11. August 26 2014,Lisa Lightner at Grounded Parents: the CDC vaccines/autism/coverup theory {spoiler alert-it’s not true!}

    a friend, a friend that I consider to be intelligent and reasonable….first posted a link to a CNN article. Correction–it’s iCNN…which is VERY different. ANYONE can post ANYTHING there. You can, really. It’s a crowdsourcing platform. Shame on you CNN for whoring out your name for page views. Because this is what happens–people will post just about anything…..

    I wish we knew the causes of autism, I really do. But vaccines ain’t it.

    Fear sells, don’t buy it.

  12. August 26, 2014, Reuben Gaines at The Poxes Blog: How to end a scientist’s career with some fancy editing

    As much as the anti-vaccine activists have been demanding that Dr. Thompson come out into the open and make some sort of a statement, no one seems to demand that Andrew Jeremy Wakefield and his team publish the entire recorded conversation between Brian Hooker and Dr. Thompson. All we get are lies and innuendo. We have operatives like Ginger Taylor writing on Twitter that CDC deliberately didn’t look at birth certificates for African-American babies in the DeStefano study.

    August 26, 2014: Anti-Vaccine Group The Thinking Mom’s Revolution Hosts a #CDCWhistleblower Twitter Party

  13. August 27, 2014 Karoli Kuns at Crooks and Liars: Rob Schneider’s Anti-Vax Crusade Now Enters Alex Jones Territory

    There’s nothing like a good conspiracy theory to get the creative juices flowing. For actor Rob Schneider, that means getting your dander up over your incorrect belief that the CDC altered data to bury the “fact” that MMR causes autism.

  14. August 27 2014, Sullivan (Matt Carey) at LeftBrainRightBrain Autism: Discussions of the recent MMR/autism paper (and why the study isn’t what the author wants you to believe it is)

    Below are a selected list of discussions about Brian Hooker’s recent paper and the highly irresponsible way he and his team are promoting it. Let me know if you spot one I should add to the list.

  15. August 27, 2014,  Orac Knows at Respectful Insolence: The CDC “whistleblower” manufactroversy: Twitter parties and another “bombshell” e-mail

    … just how desperate the antivaccine movement is to have Brian Hooker’s incompetent “reanalysis” of a ten year old vaccine safety study and Andrew Wakefield’s despicable race-baiting video gain traction in the mainstream media. The failure of this conspiracy theory to do so is driving antivaccine activists into ever-greater fits of lunacy online.

  16. August 27, 2014, Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy, Slate: No, There Still Is No Connection Between Vaccines and Autism

    There’s a conspiracy theory going around that the CDC covered up a link between autism and vaccines. From what I can tell, this conspiracy theory is on the same level as the one that NASA faked the Moon landings. And you know how I feel about that.

  17. August 27, 2014, ToddW at Harpocrates Speaks, Anti-vaccine Activists Throw Twitter Tantrum

    … the hashtag #CDCwhistleblower to do what really amounted to the social media equivalent of a temper tantrum, whining about how the mainstream media is not reporting on the study. It was really a sad display, as they simply all copied and pasted from the same list of talking points, not even adding their own interpretation.

    August 27, 2014, in the morning: The Journal Translational Neurodegeneration removes Hooker’s paper from the public domain

  18. August 27 2014, Sullivan (Matt Carey) at LeftBrainRightBrain Autism:The Brian Hooker article “…has been removed from the public domain because of serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions”
  19. August 27, 2014, Adam Marcus at Retraction Watch: Journal takes down autism-vaccine paper pending investigation

    An article purporting to find that black children are at substantially increased risk for autism after early exposure to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine has been shelved, amid claims that a CDC whistleblower has accused health officials of suppressing information about the link.

  20. August 27, 2014, Reuben Gaines at The Poxes Blog: Even the bottom-feeding journals seem to have some sense

    ’m still left wondering how this paper got through peer review, or who did the peer review. They seem to not have bothered with checking the biostatistics or with looking back at the DeStefano paper.

    August 27, 2014, at approximately 2:30 pm, PDT, attorneys for William W. Thompson, the CDC employee, publish Thompson’s statement

  21. August 27, 2014: Ren at Epidemiological Dr. Brian S. Hooker gets the Andrew Wakefield treatment.

    My problem with Dr. Thompson’s statement is that the data were not omitted willy-nilly. There was a protocol that was established, and it excluded from the analysis children of different ethnicities, not just African Americans. In that exclusion, a vaccine-autism signal that was confounded by different factors was lost. It wasn’t lost out of bias but out of properly adjusting for different factors.

  22. August 28, 2014, Sullivan at LeftbrainRightBrain Andrew Wakefield betrays another “whistleblower” with Brian Hooker helping

    Apparently Mr. Hooker is unaware that the secrecy of confession is absolute. Priests, real ones, not self appointed ones like Mr. Hooker, have been known to go to jail rather than divulge what they’ve been told in confession. Real priests don’t record confessions so they can betray another.

  23. August 28, 2014, Debra Goldschmidt, CNN, Journal questions validity of autism and vaccine study

    Dr. Frank DeStefano, lead author of the 2004 study, said he and his colleagues stand by their findings. DeStefano said all the study authors, including Thompson, agreed on the analysis and interpretation before the study was submitted for publication 10 years ago. However, he said he plans to review his notes and will decide whether to run another analysis on the data.

  24. August 28, 2014, Reuben Gaines at The Poxes Blog, Autism is not death, unless you want it to be

    While the black ribbon can mean different things to different people, it’s main use is for grieving or remembering the fallen, the dead. The way that these people have used it is to try to bring attention to their cause by equating autism with a death or a loss.

  25. August 28, 2014, Orac at Respectful Insolence A bad day for antivaccinationists: A possible retraction, and the “CDC whistleblower” issues a statement

    Betrayals within betrayals. This can’t all be laid on Wakefield. Thompson was played. Big time.

Posts discussing Hooker’s allegations from anti-vaccine sources and those believing Hooker’s allegations  .

Timeline

August 8, 2014: Hooker paper published online

August 18, 2014: Focus Autism Press Release published online

August 18, 2014: Andrew Wakefield’s Autism Media Channel Video Alleging a CDC Whistleblower published online

  1. August 18, 2014, Jake Crosby at Autism Investigated: CDC Whistleblower Reveals Yet More Research Fraud
  2. August 19, 2014 Age of Autism at Age of Autism: Whistleblower Says CDC Knew in 2003 of Higher Autism Rate Among African-American Boys Receiving MMR Shot Earlier Than 36 Months
  3. August 20, 2014, Mike Adams at Natural News: Vaccine bombshell: CDC whistleblower reveals cover-up linking MMR vaccines to autism in African-Americans
  4. August 20, 2014, Age of Autism at Age of Autism: Senior Government Scientist Breaks 13 Years’ Silence on CDC’s Vaccine-autism Fraud
  5. August 20, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport’s Blog Breaking: Breaking: MMR vaccine, autism, CDC coverup 
  6. August 21, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport’s Blog: Vaccine-autism connection: US Congressman stonewalled by the CDC
  7. August 21, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport’s Blog: Advice for the secret CDC vaccine whistleblower
  8. August 21, 2014: Mike Adams at Natural News:  CDC refuses to turn over documents to Congress: Evidence linking MMR vaccines to autism intentionally withheld from investigators
  9. August 22, 2014, Ethan Huff at Natural News, CDC whistleblower confesses to publishing fraudulent data to obfuscate link between vaccines and autism
  10. August 22, 2014, metamars at My Firedog Lake: CDC refuses to turn over documents to Congress showing MMR vaccines caused autism in black children (note: metamars’ blog post, not an official Firedoglake post)

    August 22, 2014: Andrew Wakefield’s Autism Media Channel Video Naming William W. Thompson as “The CDC Whistleblower ” published online

  11. August 22, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport’s Blog: CDC whistleblower revealed: William Thompson
  12. August 22, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport’s Blog: What CDC whistleblower William Thompson needs to do now
  13. August 22, 2014 Jon Rappaport at Jon Rappaport’s Blog Breaking: CDC whistleblower Thompson in grave danger now
  14. August 22, 2014, at TMR at Thinking Moms’ Revolution: CDC Whistleblower William Thompson Blows the Lid on Malfeasance and Fraud at the CDC
  15. August 22, 2014, Jake Crosby at Autism Investigated, Andrew Wakefield Betrays CDC Whistleblower
  16. August 23, 2014, Inquisitr CDC Whistleblower’s Claims Cause Uproar In Autism Community
  17. August 24, 2014 Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport’s Blog CNN iReport on CDC whistleblower spreads like wildfire, then censored
  18. August 24, 2014, Jon Rappaport at Jon Rappaport’s Blog Rob Schneider says he has smoking gun on CDC vaccine-autism fraud  (For beginners: Rob Schneider is an actor who has in the last few years become an anti-vaccine activist. Why he would have access to sensitive information is an open question.)
  19. August 24, 2014, Sally Colletti, Examiner:  Autism and The CDC: Now What?
  20. August 25, 2014, Kent Heckenlively, Age of Autism: A Break in the Wall – William W. Thompson
  21. August 25, 2014, Ethan Huff at Natural News: CDC whistleblower exposes massive autism cover-up perpetrated by government agency
  22. August 25, 2014, Mike Adams at Natural News: CDC whistleblower’s secret letter to Gerberding released by Natural News as mainstream media desperately censors explosive story
  23. August 25, 2014, Mike Adams at Natural News CNN caught red handed covering up CDC medical genocide of African-American babies (much handwaving over open-source reports at iCNN being changed or deleted.)
  24. August 25, 2014, Zorro at Thinking Moms’ Revolution: Stop Calling Us Crazy: Autism, MMR, and Institutional Gaslighting
  25. August 25, 2014, Megan Heimer at Living Whole CDC Whistleblower Comes Out and They All Play Dead
  26. August 25, 2014, Age of Autism at Age of Autism: Rob Schneider Demands Answers on CDC MMR Fraud
  27. August 25, 2014, Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport’s Blog CDC vaccine-autism fraud: what victory looks like
  28. August 25, 2014, Jon Rappoport at Activist Post: CDC whistleblower, watch out; here come the mothers
  29. August 25, 2014, Kelly Brogan at Kelly Brogan MD CDC: You’re Fired. Autism Coverup Exposed.
  30. August 25, 2014, Patrick “Tim” Bolen at the Bolen Report The CDC Whistleblower… The Story Mainstream Media Doesn’t Want To Run…
  31. August 26, 2014, JB Handley at Age of Autism: Knock-out Blow Needed: Dr. Thompson Must Speak Out on MMR African American Autism Connection.
  32. August 26, 2014, John Stone at Age of Autism:CDC Frauds: Connections Between the DeStefano Paper and the Thorsen Affair.
  33. August 26, 2014, Celia Farber, Epoch Times:  Whistleblower Reveals CDC Knowingly Put Children at Risk of Autism, Media Remains Silent (Video)
  34. August 26, 2014, Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport’s Blog CDC whistleblower is just the tip of the iceberg
  35. August 26, 2014 Mike Adams at Natural News EXCLUSIVE: Bombshell email from CDC whistleblower reveals criminality of vaccine cover-up as far back as 2002
  36. August 26, 2014, Age of Autism at Age of Autism: CDC Whistleblower on Thimerosal in Pregnant Women (note: video interview with Brian Hooker, not William W. Thompson)

    August 26, 2014, in the evening: Anti-vaccine Activists at The Thinking Moms’ Revolution Host a #CDCWhistleblower Twitter Party

  37. August 27, 2014, “Bobby Dee” at Gianelloni Family: Erased by a Birth Certificate
  38. August 27, 2014, John Stone, Age of Autism: The CDC: the Detective Agency Which Could Never Find Anything<
  39. August 27, 2014, Anne Dachel, Age of Autism: CDC Whistleblower Story: Danke to Franchi
  40. August 27, 2014, Marcella Piper-Terry, CDC Whistleblower and Probability of Post-MMR Autism Diagnosis
  41. August 27, 2014, Marcella Piper-Terry at Thinking Mom’s Revolution How Many African-American Boys Have Autism as a Result of the CDC’s Lies?
  42. August 27, 2014, Ethan Huff at Natural News: Congressman Posey discusses autism, vaccines and lack of CDC transparency in interview with Dr. Brian Hooker
  43. August 27, 2014 Mike Adams at Natural News: Media conspiracy to bury CDC whistleblower story protects vaccine makers at the expense of human life
  44. August 27, 2014, Jon Rappoport at Jon Rappoport’s Blog Update: CDC whistleblower in touch with members of Congress

    August 27, 2014, in the morning: The Journal Translational Neurodegeneration removes Hooker’s paper from the public domain

  45. August 27, 2014 Mike Adams at Natural News: Scientific journal censors Brian Hooker’s analysis of CDC vaccine data; the Church of Science orders ‘burning of books’
  46. August 27, 2014, Age of Autism at Age of Autism: Translational Neurodegeneration Removes Vaccination Timing Article

    August 27, 2014, at approximately 2:30 pm, PDT, attorneys for William W. Thompson, the CDC employee, publish Thompson’s statement

  47. August 27, 2014, Age of Autism at Age of Autism: Statement from William Thompson, RE Pediatrics MMR African American Males Data
  48. August 27, 2014 Mike Adams at Natural News: BREAKING: CDC whistleblower confesses to MMR vaccine research fraud in historic public statement
  49. August 27, 2014, The Event Chronicle at The Event Chronicle: CDC whistleblower confesses to MMR vaccine research fraud in historic public statement
  50. August 28, 2014 Celia Farber, Epoch Times Vaccinegate: CDC Whistleblower Admits Claims of Data Fixing Were True, Complains at Being Recorded and Outed

Other links

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