Autism scare a hoax

[cdunn]

His report said he couldn't rule out a link and that more studies need to be done.

Once again, Mr. Wakefield faked a portion of his data, and threw away any data in his study that did not lead to his conclusion. Any reasonable interpretation of the full data set collected: That a number of children develop signs of autism before vaccination, and that there is an essentially random time, stretching to an average of 56 days, between vaccination and the first signs of autism, support that there is nothing worth deeper investigation. The 'big push' comes from the exposure of parental testimony that the data presented relative to his child was fabricated. While doing so, he took an amout of money very close to a million US dollars from trial lawyers for a study they hoped would support vaccine injury cases against the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine.

A situation has been created where Mr. Wakefield has made of himself a publicity lightning rod for the cause of non-vaccination, and since he's been exposed as a fraud and a liar, he's blowing on his little dog whistle of 'I just suggested an investigation' for all his supporters to come to his aid.

The 'media sensation' that you refer to is the decade old lunging of thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousand of parents of autistic children at a chance to blame someone, anyone, for a disorder that they believe had made their child something other than human. They are wrong. The vaccines are not to blame, and their child is still a person, a full human being. But for every one of these, there are ten parents of autistic children to just want the best for their child. Therefore, the media has a moral duty to expose the truth of the matter - while there are miniscule risks of vaccine injury, they are many orders of magnitude smaller than the risks of the diseases they prevent, and autism is not among the potential risks. If nothing else, parents who do not yet know if they should or should not vaccinate their children deserve to know that the study that the anti-vaccine ideologues like to wave around in support of their cause is a baldfaced lie - That a link cannot be reasonably ruled out on Wakefield's dataset is a lie. That a link is there is a lie - but it is a lie that is being waved around by desperate parents who don't know any better - or in many cases refuse to know any better.

Autism has become worth millions of dollars as frightened parents run around trying to do anything to make their children 'whole and right' again. They are going so far as to chemically castrate them in hopes of 'curing' them. They are flushing drugs for heavy metal poisoning through their children, exposing them to the full side effects to no benefit. They are feeding them industrial bleach. THAT is why there is a sensation, because this is near and dear enough to many people to get them to do very, very stupid things, a significant portion of which is based on a lie stating that maybe there might be a link between autism and vaccine.

 

[Tez3]

Once again, Mr. Wakefield faked a portion of his data, and threw away any data in his study that did not lead to his conclusion. Any reasonable interpretation of the full data set collected: That a number of children develop signs of autism before vaccination, and that there is an essentially random time, stretching to an average of 56 days, between vaccination and the first signs of autism, support that there is nothing worth deeper investigation. The 'big push' comes from the exposure of parental testimony that the data presented relative to his child was fabricated. While doing so, he took an amout of money very close to a million US dollars from trial lawyers for a study they hoped would support vaccine injury cases against the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine.

A situation has been created where Mr. Wakefield has made of himself a publicity lightning rod for the cause of non-vaccination, and since he's been exposed as a fraud and a liar, he's blowing on his little dog whistle of 'I just suggested an investigation' for all his supporters to come to his aid.

The 'media sensation' that you refer to is the decade old lunging of thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousand of parents of autistic children at a chance to blame someone, anyone, for a disorder that they believe had made their child something other than human. They are wrong. The vaccines are not to blame, and their child is still a person, a full human being. But for every one of these, there are ten parents of autistic children to just want the best for their child. Therefore, the media has a moral duty to expose the truth of the matter - while there are miniscule risks of vaccine injury, they are many orders of magnitude smaller than the risks of the diseases they prevent, and autism is not among the potential risks. If nothing else, parents who do not yet know if they should or should not vaccinate their children deserve to know that the study that the anti-vaccine ideologues like to wave around in support of their cause is a baldfaced lie - That a link cannot be reasonably ruled out on Wakefield's dataset is a lie. That a link is there is a lie - but it is a lie that is being waved around by desperate parents who don't know any better - or in many cases refuse to know any better.

Autism has become worth millions of dollars as frightened parents run around trying to do anything to make their children 'whole and right' again. They are going so far as to chemically castrate them in hopes of 'curing' them. They are flushing drugs for heavy metal poisoning through their children, exposing them to the full side effects to no benefit. They are feeding them industrial bleach. THAT is why there is a sensation, because this is near and dear enough to many people to get them to do very, very stupid things, a significant portion of which is based on a lie stating that maybe there might be a link between autism and vaccine.

An extremely good post, thank you. The last paragraph is horrifying though. I can't imagine what parents are going through trying to find a cure for their children, it makes them so easily a target for those looking either to make money or for 'renown'.
In your first link in that paragraph, Professor Baron-Cohen is mentioned as saying the treatment is irresponsible, he's the cousin of actor Sasha Baron-Cohen overwise known as Ali G, Bruno and Borat. It's an extremely talented family with several well respected doctors (I know friends of friends) and Professor Baron-Cohen is one of the best in his field, if he says it doesn't work, it doesn't.

 

[crushing]

Once again, Mr. Wakefield faked a portion of his data...

Yes, I understand that. At the same time his report is being misrepresented in the media. His report specifically states that he didn't find a link between vaccines and autism. In interviews he said he didn't find a link. Yet the media says keeps saying that he and his study claims to link autism with the MMR vaccine. I'm just asking why are the media doing that?

The title of the thread is "Autism scare a hoax". I'm interested in who took Wakefield's study (however flawed and fradulent it may be) and turned it in to something it never was. And, for what purpose?

 

[cdunn]

Yes, I understand that. At the same time his report is being misrepresented in the media. His report specifically states that he didn't find a link between vaccines and autism. In interviews he said he didn't find a link. Yet the media says keeps saying that he and his study claims to link autism with the MMR vaccine. I'm just asking why are the media doing that?

The title of the thread is "Autism scare a hoax". I'm interested in who took Wakefield's study (however flawed and fradulent it may be) and turned it in to something it never was. And, for what purpose?

Who? Advocacy groups such as Age of Autism. "News" sites like Huffington Post, after the 'quick strike against the establishment'. Alt-Med practitioners who may honestly believe that they have a 'cure', or those who are willing to commit fraud against the innocent and desperate for a quick buck. These people keep pushing the idea that vaccines cause autism, and are bad in general. Semi-celebrities like McCarthy, Carey, and RFK shill for them, often in honest belief.

The increase in autism diagnosis has created a large number of desperate and confused people, looking to latch on to any hope. There has been precious little hope for them in science-based medicine. Autism is incurable. Dealing with the developmental issues is not trivial. Certain therapies can make it easier on the people who show the symptoms, but there are limits, and the therapies are long and tiring. As above, there are a lot of people who look at this situation and honestly, but wrongly, think they can help. There are also a lot of people who look at the situation and think "prey".

 

[Empty Hands]

At the same time his report is being misrepresented in the media. His report specifically states that he didn't find a link between vaccines and autism.

He said his report did not "prove" such a link, and went on to discuss other potential causes in good scientific fashion. However, by reference and by data he links antigen induced inflammation in the gut to autism development, and further links vaccine administration to autism development. His study taken at face value supports the hypothesis, which is what all the hoopla is about. It is disingenuous to say that Wakefield did not attempt to link the two in his study.

As for the media, "correlation does not equal causation" is very difficult for journalists (and most of the public) to grasp. If any journalist claimed this study "proved" such a link, then they are hardly alone even on reporting non-controversial studies - and I doubt it was done deliberately. Again, his study taken at face value supported the hypothesis, and it would not be illegitimate to report it as such.

In interviews he said he didn't find a link. Yet the media says keeps saying that he and his study claims to link autism with the MMR vaccine. I'm just asking why are the media doing that?

Because his data supported it, and his career after that study was aimed at vaccine induced neurological damage? Because he claims that the vaccines are not properly tested and may be causing neurological problems? It's basically crazy for Wakefield to pretend that he has no idea why people would think he thinks that vaccines, MMR or otherwise, would cause neurological problems. His whole career post-1988 is devoted to that very hypothesis! He even said as much in the interview you pulled some quotes from.

So not only is Wakefield a scientific fraud, he's a personal fraud as well.

 

[crushing]

Who? Advocacy groups such as Age of Autism. "News" sites like Huffington Post, after the 'quick strike against the establishment'. Alt-Med practitioners who may honestly believe that they have a 'cure', or those who are willing to commit fraud against the innocent and desperate for a quick buck. These people keep pushing the idea that vaccines cause autism, and are bad in general. Semi-celebrities like McCarthy, Carey, and RFK shill for them, often in honest belief.

Thank you much for your patience and responses. Major news organizations such as CNN and ABC are saying that Wakefield and his report link autism with the MMR vaccine. Doesn't it seem like these news organizations would have the means to actually read and understand the report? Do they have a motivation to propagate the autism link that never was, or do they just suck at reporting?

EDIT:
Empty Hands: I was composing the above when you posted your message. Thank you for your response too.

As for the media, "correlation does not equal causation" is very difficult for journalists (and most of the public) to grasp. If any journalist claimed this study "proved" such a link, then they are hardly alone even on reporting non-controversial studies - and I doubt it was done deliberately. Again, his study taken at face value supported the hypothesis, and it would not be illegitimate to report it as such.

 

[Makalakumu]

Autism rates are skyrocketing across the western world. That is no hoax. 1 child in 60 in the UK suffers from a form of autism. Meanwhile, when vaccinated children are studied, the rate of autism is astonishingly low. A large Amish community was studied and the rate was less then 1 in 10,000. Chinese studies replicate this statistic.

Even if you know nothing about statistics, THAT difference is clearly significant. Something is happening to children in the Western world that are being vaccinated. A raft of studies exist that show how heavy metal exposure is directly linked to incidences of autism. There are a lot of sources of heavy metal exposure in the modern world and one of them is a mercury based preservative that is used in many vaccines, including the MMR and Flu shots.

You can brush off Wakefield's study, but you can't brush off the rest of this work. I suspect that he is being demonized in order to associate the rest of these studies with the strawman. Who knows...

Conspiracy theories aside, I vaccinated my children, but I did it slowly, one at a time, over a long period of time, AND demanded that they did not take the preservative or other adjuvants with their vaccines. They make vaccines without those things for people with special conditions, but they are more expensive. This information was enough to make me decide that I didn't want to risk my childrens health.

It's interesting to note that the high-ups in the German government also demanded preservative and adjuvant free vaccines for their families. That's very interesting, isn't it...

 

[Empty Hands]

Major news organizations such as CNN and ABC are saying that Wakefield and his report link autism with the MMR vaccine. Doesn't it seem like these news organizations would have the means to actually read and understand the report?

Because the report does exactly that! Taken at face value anyways, which as we now know we should not do. Check out Table 2. Also look at these passages from the results:

"In eight children, the onset of behavioural problems had been linked, either by the parents or by the child's physician, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination. Five had had an early adverse reaction to immunisation (rash, fever, delirium; and, in three cases, convulsions). In these eight children the average interval from exposure to first behavioural symptoms was 6·3 days (range 1-14). Parents were less clear about the timing of onset of abdominal symptoms because children were not toilet trained at the time or because behavioural features made children unable to communicate symptoms.

One child (child four) had received monovalent measles vaccine at 15 months, after which his development slowed (confirmed by professional assessors). No association was made with the vaccine at this time. He received a dose of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine at age 4·5 years, the day after which his mother described a striking deterioration in his behaviour that she did link with the immunisation. Child nine received measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine at 16 months. At 18 months he developed recurrent antibiotic-resistant otitis media and the first behavioural symptoms, including disinterest in his sibling and lack of play."



Who can read that and say that Wakefield's report did not link vaccines with autism? "Link" is a correlative word, and it's perfectly correct to describe his report that way. "Prove" is a causative word, and while Wakefield disclaimed that word in his report, his report clearly linked vaccines with autism.

 

[Empty Hands]

Autism rates are skyrocketing across the western world. That is no hoax....Even if you know nothing about statistics, THAT difference is clearly significant.

Not necessarily. The way that autism is defined and appreciated now is vastly different from before. If you had difficulty understanding social cues and preferred logical constructs to feelings 30 years ago, well you were just a little weird. Now, you would be diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and placed on the autism spectrum. What autism is has rapidly expanded, and diagnosis has radically changed as well. You can't fairly compare diagnosis rates now and years ago.

Same thing with ADD/ADHD. When I was a hyper kid and didn't want to pay attention, well I was exactly that. Now I would be diagnosed with ADHD. That doesn't mean I would have a disorder now but not 30 years ago, the way we define and diagnose the disease has changed.

That doesn't mean that autism hasn't increased, but it doesn't necessarily mean it has either.

There are a lot of sources of heavy metal exposure in the modern world and one of them is a mercury based preservative that is used in many vaccines, including the MMR and Flu shots.

Thimerosal (the mercury preservative) has been absent from nearly all vaccines (maybe all by now) since 2001. Yet autism rates continue to rise.

 

[crushing]

From the report.

We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described.

What is the difference between "link" and "association", or are they synonmous?

 

[Makalakumu]

Not necessarily. The way that autism is defined and appreciated now is vastly different from before. If you had difficulty understanding social cues and preferred logical constructs to feelings 30 years ago, well you were just a little weird. Now, you would be diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and placed on the autism spectrum. What autism is has rapidly expanded, and diagnosis has radically changed as well. You can't fairly compare diagnosis rates now and years ago.

Same thing with ADD/ADHD. When I was a hyper kid and didn't want to pay attention, well I was exactly that. Now I would be diagnosed with ADHD. That doesn't mean I would have a disorder now but not 30 years ago, the way we define and diagnose the disease has changed.

That doesn't mean that autism hasn't increased, but it doesn't necessarily mean it has either.

The studies above used modern definitions of ASD. The increase is anywhere between 300% and 500%. Previous work on this matter never compared groups who were vaccinated.

Thimerosal (the mercury preservative) has been absent from nearly all vaccines (maybe all by now) since 2001. Yet autism rates continue to rise.

Plenty of vaccines still use Thimerosal. The Swine Flu jab is laced with it.

 

[Nomad]

Some of the most relevant parts of this revelation, to me at least are:

An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study's author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study -- and that there was "no doubt" Wakefield was responsible.

and most tellingly:

Wakefield has been unable to reproduce his results in the face of criticism, and other researchers have been unable to match them. Most of his co-authors withdrew their names from the study in 2004 after learning he had had been paid by a law firm that intended to sue vaccine manufacturers -- a serious conflict of interest he failed to disclose.

According to BMJ, Wakefield received more than 435,000 pounds ($674,000) from the lawyers. Godlee said the study shows that of the 12 cases Wakefield examined in his paper, five showed developmental problems before receiving the MMR vaccine and three never had autism.

So we have someone with an undisclosed massive conflict of interest slanting results to give the lawyers what they wanted to sue vaccine manufacturers. As a result of which, many parents have chosen not to immunize their children against highly contagious and in some cases potentially fatal diseases, cases of which are now becoming more prevalent.

In addition, this has diverted millions of research dollars into attempting to confirm or refute results of what is basically a fraudulent study instead of using these resources to research the true causes of this devastating disease. The doctor in question has had the article retracted by the Journal which published it (controversial studies are generally not retracted, only those which have been proven to be fraudulent), and he's also been stripped of his medical license for violating just about every ethical standard of being a physician, starting and ending with "do no harm".

 

[cdunn]

Amish Autism - 1 in 257 by standard diagnostic tools. It is noted that cultural factors may have lead to underreporting.

Chinese Autism - While Chinese news sources are always questionable, 1.8 million autistic children are reported. If we generalize to ~250 million children under 19 in China, that gives us an autism rate of about 1 in 140.

That 'raft of studies' are all from the gentlemen, the Geiers, who have pioneered the fine art of castrating children with autism. Their stake in the matter is $5000 per month per child. In 2004, Medicare standard reimbursement for the treatment when applied on-label for prostate cancer, endometriosis and precocious puberty was $611 per injection - with injections scheduled every 4 months.

 

[ballen0351]

I wonder how many cases of Autism are really cases of autism. In America we seem to always be looking for the quick fix the quick answer. My youngest son was diagnosed with Autism about 8 months ago. We noticed slight differences in his development as compared to our other kids and when we brought it to the attention of his Doc she immediately said Autism before she even really looked at other possible causes. He was then taken to experts who had confirmed this but I think 20 years ago we would have been told he was fine he’s just slower then other kids but he will catch up on his own time. I honestly believe in time he will catch up to his brothers and sisters with attention and working with him, no Meds, or crazy treatments.

Its like Hyper kids in schools now days seem to all have ADHD and are put on meds where 20 years ago the parents would have been told oh he’s just a boy he is supposed to be hyper let him burn off some energy he will be fine. Today I don’t think parents want to hear that. I think they look for any other excuse as to why there kids misbehave and now they have that excuse so that they can say "oh I’m not a bad parent my kid has ADHD."

Or every time someone gets a runny nose they run to the doc and are put on antibiotics. Back in the day Doc would say oh you just got a cold it will go away in a few days now if you don’t get meds your doc is no good. Its causing all these antibiotic resistant germs out there from over use of medications.

I’m not saying all cases are fake I’m just saying I don’t think the numbers are as accurate as they put them out.

 

[Nomad]

Autism rates are skyrocketing across the western world. That is no hoax. 1 child in 60 in the UK suffers from a form of autism. Meanwhile, when vaccinated children are studied, the rate of autism is astonishingly low. A large Amish community was studied and the rate was less then 1 in 10,000. Chinese studies replicate this statistic.

Even if you know nothing about statistics, THAT difference is clearly significant. Something is happening to children in the Western world that are being vaccinated. A raft of studies exist that show how heavy metal exposure is directly linked to incidences of autism. There are a lot of sources of heavy metal exposure in the modern world and one of them is a mercury based preservative that is used in many vaccines, including the MMR and Flu shots.

The question here is (assuming the figures are at all accurate; from the article, they appeared closer to anecdotal, which definitely has less meaning in this context), what else is different between the populations being studied? The vaccination itself could easily be coincidental and be providing the red herring that everyone is/was chasing while the real cause(s) are still undetected. Differences in food/water, exposure to various environmental or industrial pollutants, other medications routinely given to either the children or the expectant mothers, and so on. The list of potential culprits is huge, if there's a culprit involved at all.

For example:

A 2007 study by the California Department of Public Health found that women in the first eight weeks of pregnancy who live near farm fields sprayed with the organochlorine pesticides dicofol and endosulfan are several times more likely to give birth to children with autism. The association appeared to increase with dose and decrease with distance from field site to residence. The study's findings suggest that on the order of 7% of autism cases in the California Central Valley might have been connected to exposure to the insecticides drifting off fields into residential areas. These results are highly preliminary due to the small number of women and children involved and lack of evidence from other studies.[32] It is not known whether these pesticides are human teratogens, though endosulfan has significant teratogenic effects in laboratory rats.[33]
A 2005 study showed indirect evidence that prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides such as diazinon and chlorpyrifos may contribute to autism in genetically vulnerable children.[34] Several other studies demonstrate the neurodevelopmental toxicity of these agents at relatively low exposure levels

The differences in populations could also simply be due to different genetic variances (early studies of twins indicated that autism is 90% heritable, though this may be an overestimate). We know that different racial groups, for example, are more or less prone to different diseases based solely on their genetic makeup. This certainly could be the case with the Amish community investigated, which tends to be a fairly isolated, closed group of people (who also don't use the pesticides mentioned above, coincidentally).

The MMR vaccination was initially believed to be a potential cause of autism because of the timing; the age when autism normally starts to show clinical signs is right around the same time that this vaccine is given.

 

[Blade96]

I wonder how many cases of Autism are really cases of autism. In America we seem to always be looking for the quick fix the quick answer. My youngest son was diagnosed with Autism about 8 months ago. We noticed slight differences in his development as compared to our other kids and when we brought it to the attention of his Doc she immediately said Autism before she even really looked at other possible causes. He was then taken to experts who had confirmed this but I think 20 years ago we would have been told he was fine he’s just slower then other kids but he will catch up on his own time. I honestly believe in time he will catch up to his brothers and sisters with attention and working with him, no Meds, or crazy treatments.

Its like Hyper kids in schools now days seem to all have ADHD and are put on meds where 20 years ago the parents would have been told oh he’s just a boy he is supposed to be hyper let him burn off some energy he will be fine. Today I don’t think parents want to hear that. I think they look for any other excuse as to why there kids misbehave and now they have that excuse so that they can say "oh I’m not a bad parent my kid has ADHD."

Or every time someone gets a runny nose they run to the doc and are put on antibiotics. Back in the day Doc would say oh you just got a cold it will go away in a few days now if you don’t get meds your doc is no good. Its causing all these antibiotic resistant germs out there from over use of medications.

I’m not saying all cases are fake I’m just saying I don’t think the numbers are as accurate as they put them out.

I agree with this. I was called autistic by doctors when I was in my twenties. Whereas when i was a child in the early 80's, no one called me anything. Just different. (well at first they thought i had cry of the cat syndrome but that was ruled out with a test of my chromosomes or whatever they do) But I really think those docs were half a gin short of a martini.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cri_du_chat

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=12062

 

[Empty Hands]

But I really think those docs were half a gin short of a martini.

I would say they were missing more than that! Cri du chat is characterized by profound mental retardation, developmental defects, huge physical handicaps, blindness, and sundry others. They must have been high as kites!

 

[Nomad]

From WebMD:

Here are some of the major problems with the study, as laid out by Deer in BMJ:

The children in the study were not randomly selected. None of them lived anywhere near the hospital where Wakefield's team examined them. One came from as far away as California. All were recruited through anti-MMR-vaccine campaigners.

Wakefield did not disclose that he was acting as a paid consultant to a U.K. lawyer who was suing MMR vaccine makers for damages. Wakefield was paid about $668,000 plus expenses.

Despite being described as "previously normal," five of the children had evidence of developmental problems before receiving the MMR vaccine.

Only one of the 12 children in the study had regressive autism, although the study reported that nine of them had this condition. Three of these nine children were never diagnosed with autism.

In nine cases, gut examinations of the children were changed from "unremarkable" to "non-specific colitis."

For all 12 children in the study, medical records and parent accounts contradict case descriptions in the published study.

The BMJ editors conclude that these discrepancies show that Wakefield deliberately faked the study.

and in an aside on the mercury/thimerosol claim for vaccines; it was apparently never an issue with the MMR vaccine:

Does this have anything to do with thimerosal or mercury in vaccines?

No. Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative. It cannot be used in live-virus vaccines such as the MMR.

There has never been thimerosal in MMR vaccines.

 

[Blade96]

I would say they were missing more than that! Cri du chat is characterized by profound mental retardation, developmental defects, huge physical handicaps, blindness, and sundry others. They must have been high as kites!

For sure! All they went on was the fact that I had a cry that sounded like a cute little kitten. But as was shown with me, I suppose a infant's cry can sound like a little cat without having cat cry syndrome. And the motor skill and verbal problems I had were due to the small cerebellum, found in my brain via MRI when I was in my 20's. Scoliosis didnt help either.

Man that must be a long time of being high as a kite though. Cause they tested me again for cats cry syndrome when I was 5! By then I had started kindergarten at that year and by then I was reading every single book in the class and was reading long chapter books by grade 1. But the fact I was intellectually normal didnt matter to them. Like you said, high as kites.

 

[Tez3]

I think the OP title is misleading, it wasn't a hoax, it was fraud and a serious one at that.

The GMC has a reputation of not striking off doctors lightly, it's a serious organisation with a solid reputation. I doubt that there is any conspiracy to the case, it wouldn't be the first time a scientist has altered results for his own benefit whether money or scientific 'fame'.

Nomad, good work on your posts. Well written common sense, thank you.