The Real Next Level BS of the Vaccine Controversy.

It's obvious vaccinations have saved lives, but why should we trust these people? These are the same people that've said Marrywanna is worse than alcohol simply to get thousands addicted to state sanctioned opiates. The same people that are currently fighting tooth and nail to keep Marrywanna illegal because it cuts into their profit margin, no one gets addicted and in allot of cases relieves pain better than over the counter heroin? Why are vaccinations such an issue but your kids eating refined sugar their whole lives until their toes falls off from diabetes not an issue? As usual, American priorities never cease to amaze.

a reply to: Pardon?

It seems that we have again, a few members trying to change the goal post and trying to dismiss the evidence that disproves their claims by linking the "safe vaccine movement" to Wakefield.

But was Brian Deer truthful at all about his claims on Dr. Wakefield? This actually deserves a whole new thread because of the amount of information I have found and the actual testimonies from parents of some of the children that were part of the 12, and/or relatives of at least some of the children who were involved in this case. (I found a few responses from parents and relatives of some of these children, but would need to find if there are more.)

First of all, Brian Deer at least from the start of this controversy was never a journalist staff of the Sunday Times. In fact he had been a freelance journalist who has been very dodgy in answering the questions of who paid for Brian Deer's research, and who paid for his expensive hotels and travel expenses. But it wasn't the Sunday Times.

"It is quite clear that you do not understand English. Brian Deer is not a member of the Sunday Times staff. He is a freelance journalist who runs his own website and blog and is not under the control or direction of the Sunday Times. Mr. Deer should not represent himself as a Sunday Times journalist. He is not a member of staff, does NOT have a regular salary from us, is not on our pension scheme and pays his own tax as a freelance. If he says that he writes for the Sunday Times that would be correct. He is a contributor to The Sunday Times on an occasional basis but again we have no control over him ..."

- Alaistair Brett, Legal Manager, Sunday Times
...

www.whale.to...

But that's not what Brian Deer claims, as per his interview with CNN, and other media sources. He claims he worked/works for the Sunday Times.

R eporter: Autism Study Spurred by Money


Even Wikipedia claims that Brian Deer is a journalist of the Sunday Times. So who is really lying? and if Brian Deer was not a staff member of the Sunday Times, why do sources like Wikipedia and other news sources keep claiming he is/was?

...
Investigations by Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer reported that Andrew Wakefield, the author of the original research paper, had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest,[2][3] had manipulated evidence,[4] and had broken other ethical codes.
...

en.wikipedia.org...

In fact, so far I haven't been able to find a direct link to Wakefield's research study, so for the most part what we have is "stories of he said she said".

However, looking for evidence I have found that at least some parents, and even colleagues of Wakefield corroborate his story, and do not corroborate Brian Deer's claims.

Example. The research from Richard Deth(wasn't an author of Wakefield's study), who is a pro­fessor of phar­ma­cology in the Bouvé Col­lege of Health Sci­ences and the School of Phar­macy at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity.

Chilling impact on vaccine-​​autism research

January 10, 2011 by Northeastern News

The British med­ical journal, BMJ, has pub­lished a report by an inves­tiga­tive jour­nalist on the first study to link a child­hood vac­cine to autism and inflam­ma­tory bowel dis­ease. The article in the BMJ called the study an “elab­o­rate fraud,” and claimed that the “appear­ance of a link with autism was man­u­fac­tured at a London med­ical school.”

Dr. Andrew Wake­field linked the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vac­cine to autism in a study pub­lished in the med­ical journal Lancet more than 10 years ago. Lancet retracted the study last year after the British Gen­eral Med­ical Council found that Wake­field had acted “dis­hon­estly and irre­spon­sibly” in his research.

Richard Deth is a pro­fessor of phar­ma­cology in the Bouvé Col­lege of Health Sci­ences and the School of Phar­macy at North­eastern Uni­ver­sity. His research sug­gests that vac­cines con­taining alu­minum and/​or the mercury-​​based preser­v­a­tive thimerosal could con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of autism in chil­dren who lack the genetic capa­bility to excrete neu­ro­toxic metals. The MMR vac­cine does not con­tain alu­minum or thimerosal.
...

www.northeastern.edu...

Yes, I noticed that last statement about the MMR Vaccine not containing aluminum or thimerosal, and I have stated this before as well However, if you continue reading that link you will find it corroborates my statement that the MMR vaccine can cause inflammation in various organs, including the brain.

Let's continue.

...
What are your thoughts on the BMJ report?

I think it’s very unusual, but at the same time revealing, that the BMJ chose to pub­lish this story. Inves­tiga­tive jour­nalist Brian Deer has been on a mis­sion to dis­credit Wake­field for years. His report is not a sci­en­tific article, but rather an opinion piece that doesn’t focus on the sci­en­tific finding of whether or not autistic chil­dren have inflam­ma­tion in their gas­troin­testinal tract, which I believe is the crux of the orig­inal paper. That paper never set out to prove an explicit link between autism and the MMR vac­cine. Nobody studying 12 sub­jects could con­ceive of proving a link. Wake­field found that sub­jects had gas­troin­testinal inflam­ma­tion and at least some of par­ents reported that they thought this occurred after their chil­dren received the MMR vaccine.

Our recent research has iden­ti­fied an amino acid trans­porter that may be involved in gas­troin­testinal inflam­ma­tion and might also con­tribute to the neu­ronal inflam­ma­tion that others have found in the brains of autistic chil­dren. A con­nec­tion between the gut and the brain in autism makes sense to me.

What is the link between vac­cines and autism?

Vac­cines pro­voke an immune response to an antigen derived from a virus or bac­teria. They can also con­tain agents, called adju­vants, such as alu­minum, which aug­ment the anti­body response and can pro­voke inflam­ma­tion throughout the body, as well as preser­v­a­tives such as mer­cury, in the form of thimerosal.

Alu­minum and mer­cury can enter the brain and remain for years, where they pro­voke neu­roin­flam­ma­tion. Inflam­ma­tion during child­hood can inter­fere with the normal mech­a­nisms by which gene expres­sion is con­trolled, leading to neu­rode­vel­op­mental dis­or­ders such as autism.

While the MMR vac­cine does not con­tain alu­minum or mer­cury, simul­ta­neous expo­sure to these three viruses induces inflam­ma­tion, which con­tributes to the cumu­la­tive effect of vac­cines on children.

It’s common for chil­dren to receive sev­eral vac­cines in a single doctor’s visit. As a result, they receive a tremen­dous dose of alu­minum, well beyond limits set by the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion. This increases the chance of exces­sive inflam­ma­tion and a meta­bolic con­di­tion known as oxida­tive stress, which can dis­rupt devel­op­ment and/​or pre­cip­i­tate regres­sive autism. Studies of autistic chil­dren show that they have inflam­ma­tion and oxida­tive stress.
...

(continued below)

(continued)

BTW, I am not excerpting the whole article, but it's worth a read.

...
In light of this, should par­ents have their chil­dren vac­ci­nated against MMR and other dis­eases?

Yes. I sup­port vac­ci­na­tion and safer vac­cines that dont con­tain alu­minum or mercury.

Britain stripped Andrew Wake­field of his right to prac­tice med­i­cine. Was this jus­ti­fied?

No, not in my opinion. The eth­ical issues he was found guilty of were not of suf­fi­cient mag­ni­tude to jus­tify this penalty. More­over, doubt remains about whether there was sig­nif­i­cant and willful misconduct.

The British Gen­eral Med­ical Council and Brian Deer have con­spired to make an example of Wake­field for daring to sug­gest that vac­ci­na­tion may cause dis­ease in some individuals.

Wakefield’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of gas­troin­testinal inflam­ma­tion in autism will remain an impor­tant sci­en­tific con­tri­bu­tion. The mag­ni­tude of the effort to dis­credit him betrays a strong fear that his sug­ges­tion of a link to vac­ci­na­tion may be cor­rect. It amounts to a public pil­lo­rying that frightens others from inves­ti­gating this con­tro­ver­sial but impor­tant issue.

www.northeastern.edu...

The question is, are there other similar research studies that show the link that Wakefield and colleagues found?
The following is one of several other similar studies done by researchers at the California Institute Technology (Caltech). There are other similar studies not linked to Caltech which show this same link. A link which Wakefield found in his research.

12/05/2013
Probiotic Therapy Alleviates Autism-like Behaviors in Mice

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is diagnosed when individuals exhibit characteristic behaviors that include repetitive actions, decreased social interactions, and impaired communication. Curiously, many individuals with ASD also suffer from gastrointestinal (GI) issues, such as abdominal cramps and constipation.

Using the co-occurrence of brain and gut problems in ASD as their guide, researchers at the California Institute Technology (Caltech) are investigating a potentially transformative new therapy for autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

The gut microbiota—the community of bacteria that populate the human GI tract—previously has been shown to influence social and emotional behavior, but the Caltech research, published online in the December 5 issue of the journal Cell, is the first to demonstrate that changes in these gut bacteria can influence autism-like behaviors in a mouse model.

"Traditional research has studied autism as a genetic disorder and a disorder of the brain, but our work shows that gut bacteria may contribute to ASD-like symptoms in ways that were previously unappreciated," says Professor of Biology Sarkis K. Mazmanian. "Gut physiology appears to have effects on what are currently presumed to be brain functions."

To study this gut–microbiota–brain interaction, the researchers used a mouse model of autism previously developed at Caltech in the laboratory of Paul H. Patterson, the Anne P. and Benjamin F. Biaggini Professor of Biological Sciences. In humans, having a severe viral infection raises the risk that a pregnant woman will give birth to a child with autism. Patterson and his lab reproduced the effect in mice using a viral mimic that triggers an infection-like immune response in the mother and produces the core behavioral symptoms associated with autism in the offspring.
...

www.caltech.edu...

Can Microbes in the Gut Influence the Brain?

There are many other researchers who have been finding this link that Wakefield and colleagues pointed at in their study. But to keep the story short let's see what at least some of the parents and relatives of some of the children who were part of the research that Wakefield and colleagues did.

But, the question is not only who was paying Brian Deer to make this investigation into Wakefield research, but how was he able to obtain confidential information about the 12 children when by law this information cannot be shared by hospitals to journalists when the identity of the patients is disclosed?

UK: Vaccine Mother Demands Answers from BMJ

July 25, 2011

Isabella Thomas, mother of two of the 12 children in the controversial Early Report that first linked bowel disease and developmental regression, has written to the British Medical Journal asking whether its claim that the report was “an elaborate fraud” was itself tainted by the use of confidential medical information about her sons.

“I am putting in a complaint about Brian Deer’s article in the BMJ. … Some of the article relates to my sons’ medical details,” Thomas wrote last week to the BMJ editors as well as the Press Complaints Commission that considers allegations of journalist misconduct. “Please can you investigate my complaint as a matter of urgency. I am asking what material you had from Brian Deer to [corroborate] his story. Did you have … medical records or confidential documents relating to my children?”

Thomas’s plea followed by one day the start of my series examining the BMJ’s January article by free-lance journalist Deer. Deer claimed Dr. Andrew Wakefield, lead researcher in the 1998 Early Report, had “fixed data” to create the appearance of a link between bowel disorder, developmental regression and the measles-mumps-rubella shot, or MMR.

That Early Report – which appeared in 1998 in the Lancet, Britain’s other leading medical journal – noted that in eight of the 12 children (including Thomas’s), parents linked the onset of symptoms to the MMR shot, and it called for more research to see if a link in fact existed. It said no link to the MMR was established by the simple case series report.

Despite that cautious approach, the report and its aftermath sparked a firestorm that, fueled by Deer, ultimately led to Wakefield losing his medical license and to the Lancet retracting the report. Yet thousands of parents continue to support Wakefield and describe the same sequence of shot and symptoms as parents in the original case series. Mainstream media, medical groups, public health officials and pharmaceutical companies say any link has been discredited.

All but one of the Lancet parents who have spoken out – including Thomas – have stood by Wakefield and the study results and called the efforts to discredit him unfounded.
...
Allegations that Deer gained access to confidential information about the children in the case series have been made for years but largely ignored by press and public officials focused on what they asserted was misconduct by Wakefield – and concerned to protect a vaccination program they said it threatened (the BMJ represents the British Medical Association and is sent to more than 100,000 doctors, many of whom have stakes in vaccine usage). However, the attention has shifted in recent days to the quality of the evidence against Wakefield and how it was obtained...

www.omsj.org...

Another, of the many claims that the independent journalist Brian Deer, and the BMJ made against Wakefield and his research was that Wakefield fabricated the diagnosis of colitis. In fact what Brian Deer claims can be found in the following link. I also excerpted part of his claims.

Feature Secrets of the MMR scare
How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed
BMJ 2011; 342 doi: dx.doi.org... (Published 06 January 2011) Cite this as: BMJ 2011;342:c5347

Re: How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed

In January this year, National Whistleblowers Center director, Stephen Kohn, spoke at a vaccine safety conference in Jamaica, where Andrew Wakefield discussed his research.(1) I was invited as an observer. My responsibilities include investigating “institutional research misconduct” in which government, industry, and academic institutions use false allegations of research misconduct to suppress research (www.researchmisconduct.org).
...
Dhillon’s grading sheets comprised check boxes for the pathologist to indicate the presence and severity of Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, plus a list of other headings: “infection,” “ischaemia,” “non-specific,” and “normal.” In one case Dhillon left the boxes blank. For the remaining 10 children, he checked either “non-specific” or “normal,” with “non-specific” being checked for at least one of each child’s biopsies. Using a slightly different form, Anthony noted mild or active chronic colitis in six children. However, his forms are dated either September 1998 or October 2001 so were completed after the Lancet paper was published.
...

www.bmj.com...

But according to David L. Lewis, Ph.D. the egregious ethical misconduct was apparently done by the British Medical Journal, and Brian Deer, not by Wakefield.

Apparent Egregious Ethical Misconduct by British Medical Journal, Brian Deer

David L. Lewis, Ph.D.
January 8, 2012
UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO)
Reference No. 2011-060

Marketing drugs with tabloid science
Commentary

Editors at the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and Brian Deer, a freelance reporter with no formal training in science or medicine, alleged that Andrew Wakefield fabricated the diagnosis of colitis in a 1998 Lancet study involving 12 children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). In the study, some parents and physicians linked MMR vaccine to the children's gastrointestinal problems and rapid regression into autism. In 2010, Deer alleged in the BMJ that Wakefield alone made up the diagnosis by misinterpreting grading sheets from pathologists A.P. Dhillon and A. Anthony, who reviewed the children's colonic biopsy samples.

In the article, Deer wrote that, according to specialists, grading sheets "don’t generate clinical diagnoses such as colitis." Grading sheets I recovered from Wakefield's files, however, show that Anthony wrote "colitis" in marginal notes on a number of his grading sheets. And, Dhillon included boxes to check for various diagnoses, such as Crohn's disease and "UC" for ulcerative colitis. Consistent with the Lancet article, both pathologists found that only one child showed no evidence of inflammation.

Last September, BMJ's chief editor, Fiona Godlee, rejected a commentary I wrote about Wakefield's documents. In its place, she invited me to submit a Rapid Response, which I did. But, instead of admitting she had falsely accused Wakefield of making up the diagnosis of colitis, she and Deer simply cherry-picked the evidence to come up with a new theory involving "institutional research misconduct." The alleged fraudsters now include University College London (UCL) administrators, the Royal Free Hospital, and all 13 authors of the Lancet
study.

Their objective, according to an editorial and feature article Godlee and Deer published with my Rapid Response, was to create the MMR scare so that UCL could sell its own safer measles vaccine, diagnostic kits and "autism products." In her editorial, Godlee acknowledged "the BMJ Group receives funding from the two manufacturers of MMR vaccine, Merck and GSK."

To support their new fraud theory, Godlee rewrote my Rapid Response, removing any evidence that undermined their allegations against Wakefield and others. Then, to prevent me from publishing this evidence on my NWC website, Deer filed a flurry of false allegations of ethical misconduct against me with the NWC. Godlee ignored my
protests over Deer's behavior; and some of his false and misleading characterizations of my professional credentials and current work appeared in her editorial and Deer's feature article.

When testifying before Parliament in 2011, Godlee agreed that peer-reviewed journals have become "the marketing arm of the pharmaceutical industry." Therefore, it shouldn't surprise anyone if her fraud allegations turn out to be nothing more than a scheme to protect the BMJ's financial interests in companies marketing the MMR vaccine. What's frightening is that it requires one of Great Britain's leading medical journals to utterly destroy the reputation of one of the world's most prestigious academic institutions.
...

niceguidelines.files.wordpress.com...

Do i need to repeat that again?

If you are wondering who David L. Lewis, Ph.D. is, here is some information about him.

Dr. David Lewis

Dr. David Lewis’ cutting edge scientific research forced the EPA to abandon its policy of promoting the land application of sewage sludge on farm land. Dr. Lewis lost his job and his case in ongoing.
Available to speak

Dr. David Lewis, a former senior research microbiologist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research & Development, is the only EPA scientist to publish first-authored research articles in Nature, Lancet and Nature Medicine.

Dr. Lewis is an internationally recognized research microbiologist who discovered, at the University of Georgia (UGA) in the early 1990s, that the AIDS virus could be transmitted by certain types of dental equipment that dentists share between patients. His research, published in Lancet and Nature Medicine, led to the current heat-sterilization standard for dentistry worldwide. He has also studied similar problems with flexible endoscopes used for common medical procedures such as colorectal cancer screening.

As a senior-level (GS-15) research microbiologist for EPA’s Office of Research & Development, Dr. Lewis used DNA-fingerprinting in the late 1990s to study the effects of global climate change on the breakdown of pesticides by bacteria. This research, which he published in Nature, was awarded EPA’s Science Achievement Award. EPA officials who developed the Agency’s sewage sludge regulations, however, moved to shut down his research when he began investigating illnesses and deaths linked to EPA programs promoting the agricultural use of processed sewage sludge. Nevertheless, his research in this area prompted the CDC to issue guidelines protecting workers handling processed sewage sludge.
...

www.whistleblowers.org...

So, you tell me members of ATS, who was really part of the fraud in this? Wakefield? or Brian Deer, and the BMJ Group which receives funding from the two manufacturers of MMR vaccine, Merck and GSK?...

originally posted by: theNLBS

originally posted by: Witness2008
a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I think a part one, part two, possibly a part three for such a meaty subject. There are states now attempting to circumvent personal medical freedoms based on uneducated hysterics, seems an important enough subject to provide a complete commentary.

Yes, more videos on vaccinations are planned. This will most likely happen next week.

For this week, I've picked a chiller topic which I'll post the intro thread shortly.

Quick question, are you going to continue to label parents in these upcoming episodes that choose to not vaccinate children as # idiots and cast them in your continual sarcastic, demeaning light, now all the research has been done for you?

Oh, as to what David L. Lewis, Ph.D. has been doing lately.

...
Currently, he is a Research Associate with the University of British Columbia's Neural Dynamics Research Group, where he investigates the role aluminum adjuvants in vaccines may play in increasing risks of pre- and post- natal exposures to environmental pollutants linked to autism. In May 2014, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. in NY will release his book, Science for Sale: How the U.S. Government Uses Powerful Corporations and Leading Universities to Support Government Policies, Silence Top Scientists, Jeopardize Our Health, and Protect Corporate Profits.
...

www.ashotoftruth.org...

Now, remember that those who might have a stake on keeping the pretense that "all vaccines are safe" will try to continue to discredit all the evidence by claiming that Wakefield was "paid to forge his research". Or they will make similar claims.

The fact is Wakefield was approached to investigate these 12 children and their symptoms with a couple of colleagues, and he was given money to research whether or not there was a link between the MMR vaccine and the colitis reported in 10 of the children. Only one of the children didn't show signs of colitis, and the other one was a citizen of the U.S. so his case would not be investigated by the BMJ (which is as the name suggests a British Medical Journal).

Here is what the grandmother of another autistic child says. This child has bowel disease and was treated by Professors Walker Smith and Murch at the Royal Free Hospital, although he was not part of the 12 children in Wakefield's research study. Professor Walker Smith and Murch were co-authors with Wakefield in the 1998 Lancet study.

Feature Secrets of the MMR scare
The Lancet’s two days to bury bad news
BMJ 2011; 342 doi: dx.doi.org... (Published 18 January 2011) Cite this as: BMJ 2011;342:c7001

UK Legal Aid, Litigation and Expert Witnesses

This was Brian Deer's statement to Mr Horton at a Lancet meeting on
18th February 2004:-
'I told them that the paper's first author, Wakefield, was retained by a lawyer and was funded to help sue vaccine manufacturers.' This assertion by Brian Deer formed a major part of the GMC case against Wakefield, Murch and Walker Smith.

To dispel any ambiguity: Dr Wakefield WAS enlisted as an expert witness by MMR medical litigation lawyer Richard
Barr. Dr Wakefield was paid by the hour, pro rata, to compile reports and possibly be an 'expert witness' during a court 'proof' hearing. This is normal procedural practice for lawyers compiling evidence to be used in a UK court of law.

I must stress that Dr Wakefield's fees for this work, would have been paid directly to him via Richard Barr, who was responsible for administering the childrens' Legal Aid awards; the money would NOT have been paid directly to Dr Wakefield by the Legal Aid Board. This money was legitimately earned by Dr Wakefield and was therefore his to spend as he wished, apart from a UK tax liability of around 40%. If Dr Wakefield chose to donate any of it to a charitable trust fund, then the tax liability would have been waived under UK tax rules.

I feel that Mr Deer's use of the word 'funded' in his above statement seems to imply that the Legal Aid Board awarded money directly to the Royal Free Hospital for 'research'. Again, this does not happen under UK Legal Aid rules. Richard Barr DID NOT arrange for my Grandson to have ANY paid scopes or scans carried out at the Royal Free Hospital. These had already been carried out as part of my Grandson's initial diagnostic procedures at the Royal Free. The legal reports on him were based on these previous tests and treatments, some of which are still ongoing. I cannot comment on any other children's cases, but if Mr Barr recommended tests to be carried out on any other children, as part of an evidence gathering exercise, this will have been discussed and agreed with the parents beforehand and paid for via Mr Barr, NOT the Legal Aid Board.

There is NOTHING illegal, unusual or 'fraudulent' about ANY of this. It is USUAL PRACTICE in litigation cases to obtain reports and evidence from suitably qualified experts; indeed expert testimony is a necessary part of ALL litigation court proceedings. Many eminent clinicians and scientists regularly act as expert witnesses in court cases.

Competing interests: My autistic Grandson was treated by Professors Walker Smith and Murch at the Royal Free Hospital. He has bowel disease but was not one of the Lancet 12 children. He was one of a large number of child MMR litigation clients of Richard Barr. My Grandson's parents applied for and were awarded UK Legal aid on his behalf. (These awards are granted to individuals on a means tested and merit basis).
09 February 2011
Jenny H Allan
retired
none

www.bmj.com...

There is so much more about who really seems to have committed the fraud that it does deserve a thread of it's own. However I will post some more information here as soon as I am able.

a reply to: GetHyped

"This is not how statistics work."

WHAT?! I have no idea what statistics he's using, where he got them from or why he is choosing to use them so terribly, but I was always under the impression that a number with two or more decimal places was considered "practically 0" and could therefore be treated as such.

That's why I always throw pennies at homeless people and keep all of my retirement savings at my house in my mattress. Compound interest is just a scam.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
a reply to: Pardon?

It seems that we have again, a few members trying to change the goal post and trying to dismiss the evidence that disproves their claims by linking the "safe vaccine movement" to Wakefield.

But was Brian Deer truthful at all about his claims on Dr. Wakefield? This actually deserves a whole new thread because of the amount of information I have found and the actual testimonies from parents of some of the children that were part of the 12, and/or relatives of at least some of the children who were involved in this case. (I found a few responses from parents and relatives of some of these children, but would need to find if there are more.)

First of all, Brian Deer at least from the start of this controversy was never a journalist staff of the Sunday Times. In fact he had been a freelance journalist who has been very dodgy in answering the questions of who paid for Brian Deer's research, and who paid for his expensive hotels and travel expenses. But it wasn't the Sunday Times.

"It is quite clear that you do not understand English. Brian Deer is not a member of the Sunday Times staff. He is a freelance journalist who runs his own website and blog and is not under the control or direction of the Sunday Times. Mr. Deer should not represent himself as a Sunday Times journalist. He is not a member of staff, does NOT have a regular salary from us, is not on our pension scheme and pays his own tax as a freelance. If he says that he writes for the Sunday Times that would be correct. He is a contributor to The Sunday Times on an occasional basis but again we have no control over him ..."

- Alaistair Brett, Legal Manager, Sunday Times
...

www.whale.to...

But that's not what Brian Deer claims, as per his interview with CNN, and other media sources. He claims he worked/works for the Sunday Times.

R eporter: Autism Study Spurred by Money


Even Wikipedia claims that Brian Deer is a journalist of the Sunday Times. So who is really lying? and if Brian Deer was not a staff member of the Sunday Times, why do sources like Wikipedia and other news sources keep claiming he is/was?

...
Investigations by Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer reported that Andrew Wakefield, the author of the original research paper, had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest,[2][3] had manipulated evidence,[4] and had broken other ethical codes.
...

en.wikipedia.org...

Was it Brian Deer who decided Wakefield committed fraud and was unethical?
No.
He uncovered evidence to say he might have and the BMC took it from there.


And you say you "can't find the study".
Took me about 30 seconds to find it.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Just in case you still can't find it, here's the summary.
"Abstract
BACKGROUND:
We investigated a consecutive series of children with chronic enterocolitis and regressive developmental disorder.
METHODS:
12 children (mean age 6 years [range 3-10], 11 boys) were referred to a paediatric gastroenterology unit with a history of normal development followed by loss of acquired skills, including language, together with diarrhoea and abdominal pain. Children underwent gastroenterological, neurological, and developmental assessment and review of developmental records. Ileocolonoscopy and biopsy sampling, magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and lumbar puncture were done under sedation. Barium follow-through radiography was done where possible. Biochemical, haematological, and immunological profiles were examined.
FINDINGS:
Onset of behavioural symptoms was associated, by the parents, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in eight of the 12 children, with measles infection in one child, and otitis media in another. All 12 children had intestinal abnormalities, ranging from lymphoid nodular hyperplasia to aphthoid ulceration. Histology showed patchy chronic inflammation in the colon in 11 children and reactive ileal lymphoid hyperplasia in seven, but no granulomas. Behavioural disorders included autism (nine), disintegrative psychosis (one), and possible postviral or vaccinal encephalitis (two). There were no focal neurological abnormalities and MRI and EEG tests were normal. Abnormal laboratory results were significantly raised urinary methylmalonic acid compared with age-matched controls (p=0.003), low haemoglobin in four children, and a low serum IgA in four children.
INTERPRETATION:
We identified associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group of previously normal children, which was generally associated in time with possible environmental triggers."

You see the parts which I've highlighted.
They're the bad parts.
He had no approval to do those and that's tantamount to child abuse.
For that and that alone he should have been prosecuted.
Wakefield got off very lightly indeed.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
If you are wondering who David L. Lewis, Ph.D. is, here is some information about him.

Dr. David Lewis

Dr. David Lewis’ cutting edge scientific research forced the EPA to abandon its policy of promoting the land application of sewage sludge on farm land. Dr. Lewis lost his job and his case in ongoing.
Available to speak

Dr. David Lewis, a former senior research microbiologist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research & Development, is the only EPA scientist to publish first-authored research articles in Nature, Lancet and Nature Medicine.

Dr. Lewis is an internationally recognized research microbiologist who discovered, at the University of Georgia (UGA) in the early 1990s, that the AIDS virus could be transmitted by certain types of dental equipment that dentists share between patients. His research, published in Lancet and Nature Medicine, led to the current heat-sterilization standard for dentistry worldwide. He has also studied similar problems with flexible endoscopes used for common medical procedures such as colorectal cancer screening.

As a senior-level (GS-15) research microbiologist for EPA’s Office of Research & Development, Dr. Lewis used DNA-fingerprinting in the late 1990s to study the effects of global climate change on the breakdown of pesticides by bacteria. This research, which he published in Nature, was awarded EPA’s Science Achievement Award. EPA officials who developed the Agency’s sewage sludge regulations, however, moved to shut down his research when he began investigating illnesses and deaths linked to EPA programs promoting the agricultural use of processed sewage sludge. Nevertheless, his research in this area prompted the CDC to issue guidelines protecting workers handling processed sewage sludge.
...

www.whistleblowers.org...

So, you tell me members of ATS, who was really part of the fraud in this? Wakefield? or Brian Deer, and the BMJ Group which receives funding from the two manufacturers of MMR vaccine, Merck and GSK?...

You have made a glaring omission.
One that was key to Wakefield's fraud.
Wakefield's patent on an alternative to MMR called Transfer Factor meant he stood to gain financially by discrediting the triple vaccine.
That was undeclared when the study was published.
Why?

And Wakefield wasn't tried by the BMJ, that's a journal, he was tried by the GMC, the General Medical Council.
In fact, here's the full transcript of it.
It's very comprehensive.
And very damning.
sheldon101blog.blogspot.co.uk...

Here's an excerpt from it. It's the one I find most disturbing (I'm not too bothered about the money aspect but abusing ill children is bad. Very bad).
"With regard to nine of the eleven children (2, 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 5, 12 and 8) considered by the
Panel it determined that Dr Wakefield caused research to be undertaken on them without
Ethics Committee approval and thus without the ethical constraints that safeguard research.
Ethical constraints are there for the protection both of research subjects and for the
reassurance of the public and are crucial to public trust in research medicine. It was in the
context of this research project that the Panel found that Dr Wakefield caused three of these
young and vulnerable children, (nos. 3, 9 and 12) to undergo the invasive procedure of
lumbar puncture when such investigation was for research purposes and was not clinically
indicated. This action was contrary to his representation to the Ethics Committee that all the
procedures were clinically indicated. In nine of the eleven children (2, 1, 3, 4, 9, 5, 12, 8 and
7) the Panel has found that Dr Wakefield acted contrary to the clinical interests of each child.
The Panel is profoundly concerned that Dr Wakefield repeatedly breached fundamental
principles of research medicine. It concluded that his actions in this area alone were
sufficient to amount to serious professional misconduct."

Like I said, he's lucky he didn't go to jail.

Double post, please remove.

I'll take your attempt to discredit Brian Deer and I'll raise you this about "whistleblower" David L. Lewis, Ph.D.

From his website:
"Currently, he is a Research Associate with the University of British Columbia's Neural Dynamics Research Group."

The Neural Dynamics group is heavily funded by the Katlyn Fox
and the Dwoskin Family Foundations.
katlynfoxfoundation.com...
dwoskinfamilyfoundation.com...
The Dwoskins are also responsible for setting up the Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute
www.cmsri.org...

Now you might notice a pattern if you click on the links...
Yes, they are all what can be termed anti-vax.
In fact, the CMSRI promotes a video by Andrew Wakefield so no wonder they're trying (and failing) to exonerate him.

Thick as thieves and dishonest as the day is long.

Here's a quick summary of who funds the anti-vaxxers which some people may find interesting...
www.harpocratesspeaks.com...

originally posted by: GetHyped
Note the numbers. 1 in 300 to 1 in 1000 for the US. The decline in death rate in recent years has been to the plummet in incidence because of vaccine prevalence. Guess what: if less people are getting the disease, less people are going to die from it. It takes a special sort of denialism to thus conclude "no one dies from measles because it's harmless".

From your source:

Annual US measles deaths have declined from 408 in 1962 to 0 from 1993-present.

So, yeah...according to this quote, not one single person in the U.S.--adult, adolescent, or infant--has died in the last 12 years. A harder statistic to find is how many have suffered any severe side effects from measles (like pneumonia, or brain swelling), but I'm willing to bet the answer is 'not many.'

Statistically speaking, measles is relatively harmless. While there are some minute instances of severe side effects and death (in relation to the number of cases), it takes a special sort of ignorance to claim that measles is some horrific, terrible disease. You'd think it had the death rate of the bubonic plague, the way some of you people talk about it.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Effects of measles infection during pregnancy.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey

originally posted by: GetHyped
Note the numbers. 1 in 300 to 1 in 1000 for the US. The decline in death rate in recent years has been to the plummet in incidence because of vaccine prevalence. Guess what: if less people are getting the disease, less people are going to die from it. It takes a special sort of denialism to thus conclude "no one dies from measles because it's harmless".

From your source:

Annual US measles deaths have declined from 408 in 1962 to 0 from 1993-present.

So, yeah...according to this quote, not one single person in the U.S.--adult, adolescent, or infant--has died in the last 12 years. A harder statistic to find is how many have suffered any severe side effects from measles (like pneumonia, or brain swelling), but I'm willing to bet the answer is 'not many.'
Statistically speaking, measles is relatively harmless. While there are some minute instances of severe side effects and death (in relation to the number of cases), it takes a special sort of ignorance to claim that measles is some horrific, terrible disease. You'd think it had the death rate of the bubonic plague, the way some of you people talk about it.

Thankfully, since the incidence has been extremely low, the relative numbers of people who have been hospitalised has been low too.
Taking figures from 2011, there were 118 confirmed cases.
47 of those were hospitalised.
That's 40% (FORTY).
9 of those got pneumonia.
That's nearly 8%.
Thankfully none developed encephalitis and none died.
And that was from a small outbreak.
www.cdc.gov...


Look at what happened during a large outbreak in France fairly recently, a country with excellent healthcare facilities.
wwwnc.cdc.gov...

"Although few measles cases were reported in France during 2006 and 2007, suggesting the country might have been close to eliminating the disease, a dramatic outbreak of >20,000 cases occurred during 2008–2011. Adolescents and young adults accounted for more than half of cases; median patient age increased from 12 to 16 years during the outbreak. The highest incidence rate was observed in children under 1 year of age, reaching 135 cases/100,000 infants during the last epidemic wave. Almost 5,000 patients were hospitalized, including 1,023 for severe pneumonia and 27 for encephalitis/myelitis; 10 patients died. ."

Measles can be a horrible disease, don't try to kid yourself that it can't.
And it's so easily prevented.

a reply to: Pardon?

I know dying isn't the main issue, here--I'm not the one using the appeal-to-emotion argument that many are, making a comment similar to, "So, you'd rather these babies die than have a chance of your kid having a side effect from the vaccine?!"

But here's the thing--people (including GetHyped) are claiming that there is a 1/300 to 1/1,000 death rate for measles in the U.S. Here's this, from the CDC:

Before 1963, approximately 500,000 cases and 500 deaths were reported annually, with epidemic cycles every 2–3 years. However, the actual number of cases was estimated at 3–4 million annually. More than 50% of persons had measles by age 6, and more than 90% had measles by age 15.

So, since they claim the actual number of cases is closer to 3-4 million anually, so to err on the side of caution, let's use 2 million as our number. So, 500 deaths were reported out of 2,000,000 cases per year. Remember that 1/300 to 1/1,000 death rate for measles people are claiming? Prior to 1963, the death rate was 1/4,000 (in the U.S., which is what I'm talking about in all of my posts).

Think about that--the death rate for measles was lower before the vaccine.

Let's also look at your numbers reported in your link and cited by you:

Nevertheless, in the late 1950s, serious complications due to measles remained frequent and costly. As a result of measles virus infections, an average of 150,000 patients had respiratory complications and 4000 patients had encephalitis each year; the latter was associated with a high risk of neurological sequelae and death. These complications and others resulted in an estimated 48,000 persons with measles being hospitalized every year.

So, let's get nuts and apply those numbers to the 2,000,000 cases/year noted above (and remember, that's just the number in the U.S./year). That would make it 1/13-ish for respiratory complications (although severity isn't noted), 1/500 had encephalitis, and all complications from measles resulted in 1/42 people being hospitalized because of measles per year. And from the simple math I did above, 1/4,000 died, on average, from measles per year. That would mean that, of those hospitalized (48,000), 500 would result in a death. That's 1/96th of all hospitalizations.

Those numbers are not very compelling for the destructiveness of measles. To put things into perspective, in the 1950s, the death rate amongst those who contracted the influenza virus was 1/104 (taked from the chart in this CDC pdf titled "death rate"). More people died from the flu than measles, and that was before there was a measles vaccine (but a flu vaccine did exist, although probably not in widespread use).

Death rates and severe complications don't add up to making measles (in the United States) much of an issue--that's just the truth emerges from looking at the numbers and comparing it to other "common" (measles isn't common) viral infections. Plus, if you get the measles once, you're immune for life...not so much with the flu. This means that the flu provides you with multiple chances to die from it over the span of your life--the measles, only once. Playing with probability numbers, that really puts dying from flu much higher on the scale than measles. But, I don't see passionate threads about flu vaccinations and finding a cure.

It's all a bunch of garbage hype propulgated by mass-media hysteria...there's no other explanation for it, and certainly not one that's logical.



The End.

a reply to: Pardon?

A lot of things in life "can be" a lot of things. It's all about weighing probabilities and consequences and realities, and choosing what works best for you. I don't "kid" myself into anything--in case you haven't noticed, I've don't plenty of research on this subject.

Citing single-outbreak examples doesn't create an accurate overall picture of the threat. I the U.S. during the 1989-91 measles resurgence, with 55,622 cases reported (meaning the actual number of cases is probably higher), there were 123 deaths. U.S. death rate then: 1/452. The death rate of your French example: 1/2,000. Plus, that French example spanned more years.

But these are not indicative of the norm, in either case, so they should not be used in a logical discussion that is focused on overall numbers (like what I've been doing).

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: Pardon?

I know dying isn't the main issue, here--I'm not the one using the appeal-to-emotion argument that many are, making a comment similar to, "So, you'd rather these babies die than have a chance of your kid having a side effect from the vaccine?!"

But here's the thing--people (including GetHyped) are claiming that there is a 1/300 to 1/1,000 death rate for measles in the U.S. Here's this, from the CDC:

Before 1963, approximately 500,000 cases and 500 deaths were reported annually, with epidemic cycles every 2–3 years. However, the actual number of cases was estimated at 3–4 million annually. More than 50% of persons had measles by age 6, and more than 90% had measles by age 15.

So, since they claim the actual number of cases is closer to 3-4 million anually, so to err on the side of caution, let's use 2 million as our number. So, 500 deaths were reported out of 2,000,000 cases per year. Remember that 1/300 to 1/1,000 death rate for measles people are claiming? Prior to 1963, the death rate was 1/4,000 (in the U.S., which is what I'm talking about in all of my posts).

Think about that--the death rate for measles was lower before the vaccine.

Let's also look at your numbers reported in your link and cited by you:

Nevertheless, in the late 1950s, serious complications due to measles remained frequent and costly. As a result of measles virus infections, an average of 150,000 patients had respiratory complications and 4000 patients had encephalitis each year; the latter was associated with a high risk of neurological sequelae and death. These complications and others resulted in an estimated 48,000 persons with measles being hospitalized every year.

So, let's get nuts and apply those numbers to the 2,000,000 cases/year noted above (and remember, that's just the number in the U.S./year). That would make it 1/13-ish for respiratory complications (although severity isn't noted), 1/500 had encephalitis, and all complications from measles resulted in 1/42 people being hospitalized because of measles per year. And from the simple math I did above, 1/4,000 died, on average, from measles per year. That would mean that, of those hospitalized (48,000), 500 would result in a death. That's 1/96th of all hospitalizations.

Those numbers are not very compelling for the destructiveness of measles. To put things into perspective, in the 1950s, the death rate amongst those who contracted the influenza virus was 1/104 (taked from the chart in this CDC pdf titled "death rate"). More people died from the flu than measles, and that was before there was a measles vaccine (but a flu vaccine did exist, although probably not in widespread use).

Death rates and severe complications don't add up to making measles (in the United States) much of an issue--that's just the truth emerges from looking at the numbers and comparing it to other "common" (measles isn't common) viral infections. Plus, if you get the measles once, you're immune for life...not so much with the flu. This means that the flu provides you with multiple chances to die from it over the span of your life--the measles, only once. Playing with probability numbers, that really puts dying from flu much higher on the scale than measles. But, I don't see passionate threads about flu vaccinations and finding a cure.

It's all a bunch of garbage hype propulgated by mass-media hysteria...there's no other explanation for it, and certainly not one that's logical.
The End.

Let's leave the mortalities out of this for a bit.
Modern healthcare is quite adept at keeping people alive.

Let's go back to what you've written.
1 in 13 with respiratory problems not compelling enough?
1 in 42 being hospitalised not compelling enough?
1 in 500 getting encephalitis not compelling enough?
So you would rather have all those people hospitalised and then have a greater than 1 in 100 chance of dying than have a vaccine with a far less than 1 in a million chance of severe reaction?
Really?

Wow.

originally posted by: Pardon?
Let's go back to what you've written.
A. 1 in 13 with respiratory problems not compelling enough?
B. 1 in 42 being hospitalised not compelling enough?
C. 1 in 500 getting encephalitis not compelling enough?
So you would rather have all those people hospitalised and then have a greater than 1 in 100 chance of dying than have a vaccine with a far less than 1 in a million chance of severe reaction?
Really?

Wow.

A. No, especially when the degree of the problems is not noted. If 12/13 had extremely mild problems, like simple chest congestion, then no big deal. If 12/13 had pneumonia (which isn't the case, knowing enough about stats on measles), then I would have an issue with it. And I have asthma, and have since I was in an oxygen chamber at two weeks old. I understand repiratory problems, and what are severe and what aren't.

B. Nope, because again, knowing why and how often people actually go to the ER, this is also not indicitive of how severe the symptoms of measles are that got them in a hospital...and often times, hospital admittance is done simply as a precautionary measure, even if no severe symptoms are present. What this number is NOT is an indicator that all hospitalizations were due to severe issues caused by measles.

C. Again, no, and because of the range of symptoms and effects of encephalitis. There can be zero symptoms from the brain swelling, or there can be mild flu-like symptoms, or there could be seizures, or there could be--in very extreme cases--death. So, no, 0.2% of measles sufferers who may develop encephalitis--the symptoms of which are overwhelmingly non-deadly--does not scare me.

See, what you did with the last part of your response was try to bastardize my comment. The 1:96 ratio of deaths to hospitalization is not a probability...and I thought you said that you wanted to keep the death rate out of this. But you're looking at the numbers all wrong and trying to appeal to emotion, here. Let's break it down correctly for you:

- 2,000,000 presumed infections
- 48,000,000 hospitalizations
- 500 deaths

You need to discard the hospitalizations if you want to be realistic--the death rate is 1:4,000. That means for every 4,000 people who contracted measles, one died. That means that 0.025% of all who had measles would die from them (in the U.S.). Yes, I'll take my chances with measles, because I also know that I have a very strong immune system and I'm very health, which are both variables in favor of me fairing quite well against the all-dreaded measles. Also, it's a proven fact that a natural measles immunity is highly potent for your entire lifetime--the MMR vaccine is not, and degrades over time where you can be succeptible to measles again.

As for the rest of society--they can get the MMR shot. I'm not trying to say that they can't, so for you to say that I would rather see people hospitalized than get the shot is an utterly assinine assumption on your part. Vaccinate or don't vaccinate--I don't care. It's your body and your responsibility.

EDIT: Also, please note that you did exactly what I said people do on this cite--you're appealing to emotion in order to try and villify my stance, research, numbers, and logic. Any intelligent person can see right through that crap. You may as well have just said, "But what about the children?!?!"