Vaccinate Your Kids Episode 1: The Wakefield Menace
June 23rd 2010 14:08
There is no proven link between vaccines and autism. Let's get that straight right off the bat. Not vaccinating kids is dangerous both to the individual child and to the population as a whole.
But let's start at the beginning, with a guy named Andrew Wakefield. He's the man that conducted the original study linking the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism, back in 1998. There are a few major problems with this. First of which are two huge conflicts of interest-at the time he published the study, Wakefield was trying to get a patent for his own measles vaccine. Seems like a good reason to discredit the existing vaccine, doesn't it? Add to that he was receiving money for research from the legal fund of a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers, and it shows that Wakefield had a pretty big stake in discrediting the MMR vaccine.
So what did he do? Apparently, he faked his results. When hospital records of the twelve kids included in his study were compared to the results Wakefield published, discrepancies were found. Most of the symptoms Wakefield reported as being caused by the vaccine had actually started before the vaccines were administered. He also claimed many of the kids had inflammatory bowel disease as a result of it...the problem is, they didn't.
Wakefield's paper has since been removed from the Lancet, the original journal that published it, citing unethical research and conflicts of interest. That was after every person associated with the paper had removed their name from it except Wakefield. And to top it off, recently Wakefield was stripped of his right to practice medicine in the UK and struck from the medical register by the British General Medical Council. This is the equivalent of a lawyer being disbarred...he's basically no longer a doctor. Don't feel sorry for him. This is a guy that paid kids to get blood samples from them...at his son's birthday party. And joked about how two fainted and one threw up.
So that's the genesis of the anti-vaccination movement. An unethical liar and bad research. Stay tuned for the repercussions.
But let's start at the beginning, with a guy named Andrew Wakefield. He's the man that conducted the original study linking the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism, back in 1998. There are a few major problems with this. First of which are two huge conflicts of interest-at the time he published the study, Wakefield was trying to get a patent for his own measles vaccine. Seems like a good reason to discredit the existing vaccine, doesn't it? Add to that he was receiving money for research from the legal fund of a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers, and it shows that Wakefield had a pretty big stake in discrediting the MMR vaccine.
So what did he do? Apparently, he faked his results. When hospital records of the twelve kids included in his study were compared to the results Wakefield published, discrepancies were found. Most of the symptoms Wakefield reported as being caused by the vaccine had actually started before the vaccines were administered. He also claimed many of the kids had inflammatory bowel disease as a result of it...the problem is, they didn't.
Wakefield's paper has since been removed from the Lancet, the original journal that published it, citing unethical research and conflicts of interest. That was after every person associated with the paper had removed their name from it except Wakefield. And to top it off, recently Wakefield was stripped of his right to practice medicine in the UK and struck from the medical register by the British General Medical Council. This is the equivalent of a lawyer being disbarred...he's basically no longer a doctor. Don't feel sorry for him. This is a guy that paid kids to get blood samples from them...at his son's birthday party. And joked about how two fainted and one threw up.
So that's the genesis of the anti-vaccination movement. An unethical liar and bad research. Stay tuned for the repercussions.
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