MMR - Autism Link Study Was Fixed

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A_Wanderer

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THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

The research was published in February 1998 in an article in The Lancet medical journal. It claimed that the families of eight out of 12 children attending a routine clinic at the hospital had blamed MMR for their autism, and said that problems came on within days of the jab. The team also claimed to have discovered a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children’s conditions.

However, our investigation, confirmed by evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), reveals that: In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.

Despite involving just a dozen children, the 1998 paper’s impact was extraordinary. After its publication, rates of inoculation fell from 92% to below 80%. Populations acquire “herd immunity” from measles when more than 95% of people have been vaccinated.

Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease.

With two professors, John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch, Wakefield is defending himself against allegations of serious professional misconduct brought by the GMC. The charges relate to ethical aspects of the project, not its findings. All three men deny any misconduct.

Through his lawyers, Wakefield this weekend denied the issues raised by our investigation, but declined to comment further.
MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism - Times Online

It's just tragic that more kids will suffer from not being vaccinated.
 
Unfortunately, I see this falling on deaf ears to the people who subscribe to the "MMR causes autism" theory. Outside of this one, now false study, there has never been one shred of evidence connecting the two and countless articles have been published stating that the vaccine does not cause autism, but people still cling to MMR theory. They need something to blame or attribute autism to and until there is a definitive cause of autism, we are going to see people believe what they want to believe.
 
Unfortunately, I see this falling on deaf ears to the people who subscribe to the "MMR causes autism" theory. Outside of this one, now false study, there has never been one shred of evidence connecting the two and countless articles have been published stating that the vaccine does not cause autism, but people still cling to MMR theory. They need something to blame or attribute autism to and until there is a definitive cause of autism, we are going to see people believe what they want to believe.

True, this.
 
Unfortunately, I see this falling on deaf ears to the people who subscribe to the "MMR causes autism" theory. Outside of this one, now false study, there has never been one shred of evidence connecting the two and countless articles have been published stating that the vaccine does not cause autism, but people still cling to MMR theory. They need something to blame or attribute autism to and until there is a definitive cause of autism, we are going to see people believe what they want to believe.

So true. The people I know who cling to this "theory" are the type of people that are always second guessing everything and subscribing to every conspiracy theory their quack doctor spoon feeds them.
 
So true. The people I know who cling to this "theory" are the type of people that are always second guessing everything and subscribing to every conspiracy theory their quack doctor spoon feeds them.
I disagree. The people I know who cling to this theory just can't handle the idea that their child's autism could be anything but those evil vaccine-recommending doctors' faults.

And in the meantime, yes, children will continue to suffer from not having vaccinations.
 
I disagree. The people I know who cling to this theory just can't handle the idea that their child's autism could be anything but those evil vaccine-recommending doctors' faults.

And in the meantime, yes, children will continue to suffer from not having vaccinations.

The people I know don't even have kids with autism, but they have been spouting about not vaccinating because of these "studies". I get crap from them for getting my own vaccinations (just got tetanus and pertussis) and vaccinating my animals... Ironically, we had a parvo (dog illness) outbreak around here and now whopping cough is coming back, but my household is healthy.
 
my kids were alll born around the time of MMR scare in the 80's and early 90's, and even though I was concerned with the reports, I still had them all vaccinated because It still felt the right thing to do and I felt I would be depriving them of a more healthy lifestyle if I give in to all those stories and theories popping up

The worst childhood illness they caught was chicken pox and apart from that they all grew up perfectly healthy
 
my kids were alll born around the time of MMR scare in the 80's and early 90's, and even though I was concerned with the reports, I still had them all vaccinated because It still felt the right thing to do and I felt I would be depriving them of a more healthy lifestyle if I give in to all those stories and theories popping up

The worst childhood illness they caught was chicken pox and apart from that they all grew up perfectly healthy

Same here. My son was born in the eighties and the doctor was careful to discuss the risk of the vaccines. Reaction was rare, but my son was very healthy. Luckily, he didn't have any bad reactions to the shots. And the only childhood illness he had was chicken pox.
 
Unfortunately, I see this falling on deaf ears to the people who subscribe to the "MMR causes autism" theory. Outside of this one, now false study, there has never been one shred of evidence connecting the two and countless articles have been published stating that the vaccine does not cause autism, but people still cling to MMR theory. They need something to blame or attribute autism to and until there is a definitive cause of autism, we are going to see people believe what they want to believe.

yep. my wife is a pediatrician and she deals with this all the time. it doesn't matter what she tells people or studies she shows them, some people have already made up their minds.
 
A happy story from a country that isn't primitive
High take-up rates of the infant measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine has led to the elimination of the endemic measles virus in Australia, immunisation experts say.

Researchers from the University of Sydney, writing in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, claim that in 2005 and 2007, Australia satisfied the main criteria of having a low level of measles infection, with less than one case per million people.

A total of 125 cases were reported in 2006 - equivalent to six cases per million - but more than half of these were attributed to a outbreak linked to the tour of a foreign spiritual group.

In a seperate study the researchers suggest Australia's status will hold until at least 2012, and under the best-case scenario should be maintained for at least 20 years.

The prediction is made in the latest edition of the journal Vaccine.

Lead author Dr James Wood, now with the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales, says the finding does not mean there will be no more measles cases in Australia.

Instead large outbreaks of the virus have been eliminated with an average of 100 cases a year expected, due to imported cases of measles, he says.

Delivery date moved
The study examing the future of measles cases in Australia was prompted by a move to change the delivery of the second dose of measles vaccine from four years to 18 months.

Until recently Australian children were given the MMR vaccinations at age 12 months and four years.

Wood, who undertook the study while at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases, at the University of Sydney, says the research team wanted to investigate the effect of moving the delivery date of the second shot on elimination status and population susceptibility to the disease.

Wood says modelling shows a slight improvement in protection for children aged two to four years by the change.

He says one of the main advantages of the earlier second vaccination is an increase in coverage.

About 93% of children receive the first MMR vaccination, but this figure drops to about 86% for the second shot, he says.

Wood says if the uptake of the first MMR vaccination could be lifted to 96% of children or more this would be more effective than the earlier delivery of the second vaccine.

One of the main impacts on the country's elimination status will be people's ability to maintain their immunity, Wood says.

He says if 6% of individuals lost their immunity after 10 years then large measles outbreaks could be expected after 2015.
Australia declared measles free (ABC News in Science)

:applaud:

Public health and evidence based medicine.
 
It used to be the whooping cough one that caused the reactions. All I can say is, it's very strange that for years now you have numerous reports of kids having reactions and becoming autistic afterward. Of course no one would ever admit it, that would be suicide for the vaccine industry, break the companies, and cause so much fear in parents that people would stop getting the shots. So you see, they CAN'T ever let it be proven. This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but don't forget "And the Band Played On", how they tried to cover up the link between AIDS and blood for years because it was too damaging to the blood industry, since they got most of their donations from street people, junkies and hookers. There is a precedence, so don't laugh too hard.
 
It used to be the whooping cough one that caused the reactions. All I can say is, it's very strange that for years now you have numerous reports of kids having reactions and becoming autistic afterward. Of course no one would ever admit it, that would be suicide for the vaccine industry, break the companies, and cause so much fear in parents that people would stop getting the shots. So you see, they CAN'T ever let it be proven. This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but don't forget "And the Band Played On", how they tried to cover up the link between AIDS and blood for years because it was too damaging to the blood industry, since they got most of their donations from street people, junkies and hookers. There is a precedence, so don't laugh too hard.

Believe me, I'm laughing hard...
 
It used to be the whooping cough one that caused the reactions. All I can say is, it's very strange that for years now you have numerous reports of kids having reactions and becoming autistic afterward. Of course no one would ever admit it, that would be suicide for the vaccine industry, break the companies, and cause so much fear in parents that people would stop getting the shots.

What I see is more and more focus on autism spectrum disorders in general. It's not that it is occuring more frequently (well maybe, who knows?) but that we know more about it and how to diagnose it. More than once I have heard of an adult who's child is diagnosed with an ASD also being diagnosed at the same time, as an adult. Something they have always lived with, always felt "off", but was never diagnosed. Nothing to do with MMR vaccines. So maybe 100 years ago someone with a more severe case of autism would have been committed to an asylum but now we know what it is and how to manage it.

Any time people go out looking for a link and are demanding an explaination, they will find one. Doesn't mean it is in any way correct.
 
as someone who suffers from Aspergers Sydrome(a mild form of autism)its an inherited disease..i can see it in alot of my family..so this ''shot gives you autism''thing is a load of :censored:
 
Isn't this somewhat old news? I remember this being discussed in one of my classes, and I thought the study was discredited not long after it's release, with all but the one experimenter saying they retracted their findings - and with it being revealed that the one holdout had a serious conflict of interests.

Not that the public damage hadn't already been done.
And I too doubt this, much like the retractions, many new and more robust studies, etc that came before it, will do much to undo that damage.
 
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