Very disheartening to read the story below. Wakefield’s purported actions have hurt the cause of many who are still trying to uncover the truth behind a potential autism-vaccine link. While Wakefield’s story deals specifically with MMR and autism, there is still a lot of inconclusive info in relation to other vaccines and potential environmental triggers. It’s important to note that this incident of alleged wrongdoing, as bad as it may be, does not vindicate vaccines across the board. Hannah Poling’s $1.5 million lawsuit settlement several years ago is evidence of that.
As the debate rages on between the pro-vaccine lobbyists and anti-vaccine groups, the ones who suffer most in all of this are our children.
Retracted autism study an ‘elaborate fraud,’ British journal finds
(CNN) — A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an "elaborate fraud" that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.
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.
"It’s one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors," Fiona Godlee, BMJ’s editor-in-chief, told CNN. "But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data." [ READ MORE ]
The role of the lawyers in helping should not be ignored here.Their actions deserve to be called into question. Read the article…
http://marketsandculture.blogspot.com/2011/01/mmr-vaccine-autism-andrew-wakefield-and.html
..it is astonishing how many millions of public money were wasted by their actions.
My husband and I have our own medical practice and we see first hand the pharmaceutical reps enter our office daily attempting to talk us into using very expensive medications that were recently approved by the FDA some with as little as 18 percent effectiveness. Our 4 year old twins received the incredibly large number and combination of vaccines during their first year of life. One twin has autism, the other has speech delay and global developmental delay. I trusted my pediatricians and didn’t want to think anything bad could be done to children for the sake of making money, but I don’t believe any research was done over any extended period of time to evaluate the safety of giving all these vaccines together. I am not anti-vaccine I think the schedule and the way they are given needs to be changed. What’s the hurry?