Will the Vaccine-Autism Saga Finally End?
Not likely. You can retract a scientific paper, but not a mass movement.
SOURCE: AP/Ann Heisenfelt
A single, small study stirred a mass anti-vaccine movement that threatens public health. Now that the paper has been declared totally invalid, advocates and the medical establishment need to talk. Above, a medical assistant prepares a vaccination for a two-month-old during a wellness check at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis in 2006.
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I caught the news on the treadmill yesterday, so it must really be getting around. The Lancet, the prestigious British medical journal, has now gone to the extreme of fully retracting a notorious 1998 paper by gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues, purporting to show a shocking new cause of autism—the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine. Wakefield and his team studied digestion in 12 children with various types of behavioral disorders, nine of whom were autistic, and found inflammation in the intestines. The vaccine was blamed for letting toxins loose into the bloodstream, which not only caused the intestinal problems but, it was conjectured, then also affected the children’s brains.
The 1998 paper hit the British public like a thunderclap, triggering a decline in use of the MMR vaccine as well as a resurgence of the measles. It was the opening shot in the vaccine-autism controversy that still rages today (albeit in varied forms, not all of which still focus on the MMR vaccine). But the credibility of Wakefield’s work has since taken a steady stream of hits, culminating in this last devastating blow.
On a scientific level, the most severe undermining of Wakefield’s study came in the form of a 2004 analysis by the Institute of Medicine, one wing of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The IOM examined no less than 16 separate studies on the purported dangers of the MMR vaccine, in addition to Wakefield’s. The latter they found “uninformative with respect to causality”; overall, they concluded that “the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between MMR vaccine and autism.”
Even prior to that, ten of Wakefield’s original coauthors (out of twelve in total) had backed away from the work in a 2004 letter to The Lancet. “We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was established between MMR vaccine and autism as the data were insufficient,” they wrote. “However, the possibility of such a link was raised and consequent events have had major implications for public health.”
Meanwhile, a series of investigative stories published in The Times of London unearthed Wakefield’s undisclosed ties to vaccine litigation in the U.K. The full Lancet retraction that occurred yesterday builds on all of these developments, including, most recently, an investigation into Wakefield by the U.K.’s General Medical Council which declared him “irresponsible” and questioned, among other matters, the risks imposed upon children in the original study.
Let’s pause for a moment here. We’re talking about a single, small study—on just 12 children—that stirred a mass anti-vaccine movement and a trend away from vaccination that threatens public health in some wealthy counties. Already, you should be wondering how it could be possible to build so much upon such a slender reed. But if you then consider the subsequent fate of the study, and the scandal that has attended it, a reasonable person would surely conclude that the original scare about the MMR vaccine and autism had no serious foundation whatsoever.
Here’s the thing, though. It seems obvious to all recent commentators—myself included—that the latest Wakefield news will have virtually no impact on Wakefield’s passionate followers, the anti-vaccine ideologues in the UK and United States who have long cheered him on, and will continue to do so. If anything, it will probably only make them still stronger in their convictions.
Following its original efflorescence in 1998, modern vaccine skepticism has taken many other forms than a focus on the MMR vaccine. In the United States, there has probably been much more concern about the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal, which used to be in many vaccines (however, thimerosal has long since been removed from most vaccines, and autism rates have not dropped). The movement is much bigger than Wakefield; but the continuing allegiance to Wakefield, despite all that has occurred, shows that we’re really dealing with something very irrational here, what Michael Specter calls “denialism.”
In a feature story for Discover magazine a year back, I surveyed the vaccine-autism debate and tried to pose a question I felt few others had adequately considered. What would it take—beyond the overwhelming scientific evidence, which already exists—for this battle to finally go away? A Lancet retraction isn’t going to do it, that’s for sure. For vaccine skeptics, that’s just more evidence of corruption and collusion in the medical establishment. Indeed, I doubt any individual scientific development has the strength to move these folks—because we aren’t dealing with a phenomenon that’s scientific in nature.
Instead, I believe we need some real attempts at bridge-building between medical institutions—which, let’s admit it, can often seem remote and haughty—and the leaders of the anti-vaccination movement. We need to get people in a room and try to get them to agree about something—anything. We need to encourage moderation, and break down a polarized situation in which the anti-vaccine crowd essentially rejects modern medical research based on the equivalent of conspiracy theory thinking, even as mainstream doctors just shake their heads at these advocates’ scientific cluelessness. Vaccine skepticism is turning into one of the largest and most threatening anti-science movements of modern times. Watching it grow, we should be very, very worried—and should not assume for a moment that the voice of scientific reason, in the form of new studies or the debunking of old, misleading ones, will make it go away.
Chris Mooney is the author of several books, including The Republican War on Scienceand Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future, co-authored by Sheril Kirshenbaum. He and Kirshenbaum blog at “The Intersection.”
Comments on this article
2/3/2010 Uncovering the real cause(s) of Autism is most likely the only thing that will quiet down those who feel the MMR and/or the ever-increasing numbers of vaccines babies and small children now receive are the culprit.
Gathering both sides and talking–all by itself–will probably not prove helpful.
Doing much larger and longer term studies on well-defined patient groups might prove helpful, Especially:
- Studies on why a majority of the 12 initially studied babies showed stomach inflammation. Did they show inflammation elsewhere, as well? If so, what caused it, etc?
- Studies on patients who’ve received what is now an average of 16 vaccines in the USA, within the first 2 years of life.
- Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that getting multiple vaccines so close together, in immature bodies with undeveloped immune systems, is not a concern. (This will be difficult to do, since Gulf War studies showed adverse reactions and effects in many soliders after they rec’d multiple vaccines prior to deployment!)
Knowing that these babies–who WERE HEALTHY–suddenly started demonstrating autistic symptoms and tendencies, and that their numbers are increasing rapidly and will be a huge financial drain on both the medical system and on these kids’ families and caregivers, and that they may or may not improve back to some developmental level lost, should be a huge concern to all of us!!!
I just fail to see how ‘talking about it’ will help overly much.
Some true investigative science, done with rigid controls and protocols, is what is most needed. That little to nothing has been done scientifically in all of these years, while this situation just grows and grows exponentially, strikes me as both untenable and unconscionable.
Perhaps that is what drives the near hysteria, or the mass movement?
–>Little evidence of any corrective actions.
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:45 pmHas anyone submitted an equally plausible, but totally unfounded, theory for the rapid growth of autism in Amercan’s youth?
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:59 pmMy whimsical favorite is that a quirky set of genes are provoked into a neurological avalanche by the use by one or both parents of various recreational drugs in their mispent youth, complicated later by a reluctance of researchers to cite a causal agent ripe with guilt potential.
What makes you think scientists and physicians haven’t tried to build bridges? They have, on numerous occasions. For instance, they allowed Sallie Bernard to have major input on a study from 2007 looking at thimerosal containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes. When the study found no link (rather, it found a random bit of noise where vaccines appeared to decrease some measures and increase others, all at a frequency expected by random chance), Sallie Bernard withdrew her name from the paper and attacked it after its publication. The government has even placed prominent anti-vaccine activists Lynn Redwood (of SafeMinds) and Lee Grossman (of NAA) on the panel, and they have done nothing but try to coopt the committee to support their antivaccine agenda. Mark Blaxill also attends the meetings and has done the same thing. I can list numerous other examples of attempts to “build bridges” with antivaxers that have ended in abject failure because antivaxers won’t budge.
So, “building bridges” is all well and nice, but how–specifically do you propose to do it in a way different than what has already been tried and failed miserably on multiple prior occasions?
February 4th, 2010 at 9:52 am“Instead, I believe we need some real attempts at bridge-building…”
Past examples would include bridge-building efforts by evolutionary biologists toward creationists. Or by B’nai Brith to mend fences with the Nazis. I’m sure those meetings went well.
/snark
If you want to end the shouting, we need to look at what started this manufactured controversy. Sure, Wakefield had a lot of do with it, but to turn his nifty idea into full fledged panic he needed a little help from his friends in the press. You might even say that Wakers loaded the gun, but media pulled the trigger.
The anti-vaccine movement thrives on media exposure. It’s like oxygen to people who, deprived of a big megaphone, would be banished to the dark corners of the internet to talk amongst themselves. Without a public platform, the movement would lose an important recruiting tool. As vaccine rejectionists come to their senses and leave the movement, or succumb to pertussis, their numbers will, in theory, decline. Wakefield’s fever swamp will eventually dry up and Oprah will have to talk about something else.
Forget about kumbaya. It’s been tried already. The key is to change the public narrative from “vaccines might cause autism” to “vaccine rejectionists are barking loons, and they endanger us all.” And for that, editors and reporters need to be held accountable for how the story is reported. We’ve already seen some remarkably progressive reporting, where writers resisted their reflexive urge to balance, and instead told us what the best available science has to say. Ignoring the other side is not unheard of in journalism. No respectable editor would would “balance” a Martin Luther King Day celebration with a quote from the local Grand Wizard. When creationists, 9/11 Truthers, holocaust deniers and similar malcontents are quoted, it’s usually to illustrate how delusional these folks are, rather than to say “on the other hand…”
February 4th, 2010 at 5:02 pmThe anti-vaccine movement (think gastroenterology) has absolutely no desire to build bridges. As Orac and ANB pointed out, when given an opportunity to build bridges, the anti-vaccinationists told the science guys to jump off. The are constantly moving the goal posts and most definitely NOT interested in building anything constructive. Even if the actual cause of autism is found, they will reject it, as it may not sit four square with their firmly held beliefs.
LK Woodruff said: “Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that getting multiple vaccines so close together, in immature bodies with undeveloped immune systems, is not a concern.”
Sadly, you do not understand them. The anti-vaxxers who infest the autism community will always raise doubt. Even if the cause is found to be vaccine, which is highly unlikely, they will find more ways to raise doubt. They need to be victims, preferably of a conspiracy, to justify their miserable lives where rejecting their child for who they are is their only standard.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:10 pmI think a sense of perspective is called for. There have always been anti vaccine movements. Their hold on public opinion has waxed and waned over the years. At present they seem to be on the ascendant thanks to the linkage between vaccines and autism. Does that mean we should be building bridges? Orac has shown the futility of that exercise. It merely encourages them in the belief that they are winning and makes them more strident. Long before the vaccine autism scare was launched Barbara Loe Fisher and her NVIC anti-vaccine organization were courted by public health bodies and engaged in dialogue. All that has been achieved has been to boost her profile as if she speaks with any authority at all on the subject of vaccine safety. Has she ever contributed to the bridge building/ Has she ever come out in support of a vaccine?
A number of points stand out for me with regard to the autism-vaccine scare.
First – it began with an autism scare; an ill-founded campaign to persuade politicians and the public that an autism epidemic was creating a public health crisis. The basis for this scare is as dubious as the vaccine scare but it was allowed to dominate the media.
Second – anti vaccine campaigners were quick to latch on to this campaign and offer vaccines as the cause of the alleged epidemic. Parents of autistic children looking for answers became footsoldiers in their campaigns.
Third – the campaigners had the advantage of being able to tell a compelling story which was lapped up by the media. By comparison the dry rebuttals of the medical and research community were always going to be ignored. You cannot use reason and logic to refute a belief based on emotion.
Fourth – there remains a lot of money at stake. Personal injury lawyers and medical quacks have made a fortune out of this and will continue to do so for as long as they can persuade parents that they are victims of an uncaring government in alliance with profit hungry drug companies.
Instead of building bridges we should be building a cordon sanitaire to keep these predators at bay. We have our own compelling stories to tell. What about the childhood cancer victims who cannot be vaccinated and cannot attend day care for fear of a lethal encounter with the unvaccinated offspring of the worried well? What about the excellent journalism of of people like Trine Tsouderos at the Chicago Tribune, exposing the money grubbing quacks who feast on parental fears offering false hopes at a premium price? Or the vaccine success story in Africa where Measles deaths fell by 91% between 2000 and 2006, from an estimated 396,000 to 36,000 thanks to a mass vaccination campaign?
We will never persuade the die-hards. Our best tactic is to act to prevent them from persuading anyone else.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:45 pmI agree with the points made by Orac, Autism News Beat, Free Speaker, and Mike Stanton.
Chris, you wrote:
It’s really spreading, not from the leaders of the anti-vaccine movement, but from parent to parent.
The parents who have particular clout in this…I won’t call it a debate, as that implies equal validity to either view. The parents who have particular clout in the “vaccines do not cause autism and are a boon to public health” arena are parents whose children have autism and who not only support vaccination, but advocate for it.
Parents like Shannon des Rochas Rosa, who wrote My Child Has Autism and I Vaccinate. Judging by the responses to her post, there are a lot of parents who agree with her.
February 4th, 2010 at 7:09 pmYou’d have better luck negotiating with Al-Qaeda. Seriously. Sometimes I think authorities do too much to try to appease anti-vaxers. The IACC is a case in point.
February 4th, 2010 at 7:21 pmI agree with most of the commenters above. The idea of getting everybody together for a convivial marshmallow roast is appealing if you haven’t spent any time around these people. They have left Planet Reality. The only thing to be done is to marginalize them so they don’t get more of a chance to have their nitwitty ideas portrayed as credible. The Government has bent over backwards to let them be genuinely heard and included, and it has not diminished their paranoid fantasies one bit. Public engagement is great in some arenas, but not this one.
February 4th, 2010 at 9:46 pmThe reality is that the vaccine skeptics have not engaged in a true dialogue but have attempted to bully, suggest conspiracies, and use various guerrilla tactics to frighten scientists away from speaking up. The scientists generally have open minds, but the group that Mooney wants science to engage already has their mind made up and nothing will shake that. Have evolutionary biologists and creationists found common ground?
February 4th, 2010 at 10:38 pmTo Joesph #8…
Better luck negotiating with Al-Quaeda?
http://age-of-ignorance.blogspot.com/2010/01/al-qaeda-of-autism.html
February 5th, 2010 at 10:33 amLara, you got that right. These people need LESS forum, not more. I am making it my practice to criticize the media for giving them a platform. To even engage them in diaglogue is to give them the imprimatur of credibility and that their point of view is worth debating, which it is not.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:36 amChris:
I came by your post via Orac’s site. I have to agree with him, Stanton, lara, and similar responses. Enough is enough. Being nice and diplomatic is only going to result in less vaccinations and more dead people.
The Lancet retraction needs to be hammered home until it’s the only thing Wakefiled is remembered for. The evidence is in. These “experts” have had their day in the sun. It’s the truth’s turn now.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:47 amThe other aspect of many of these popular movements is that the celebrities of these phenomena have acquired a newfound source of power, prestige and a degree of fame. This can be heady, transformational stuff for anyone, particularly if one is a person whose life is mostly defined the banal details of daily life, or the even more banal details of the daily life of parenting. This rush of attention and all its emotional payoffs is one of the foundations of our new media landscape of reality TV and Oprah-land. I’m sure some of the most rabid and inflexible of the antivaxers (or other popular media-fed “movement” of your choice) can’t or won’t back down because they have too much to lose by doing so. There is far more emotional reward in an emotional crusade than in the drab dialog that constitutes much of scientific and public health decision making. Sober reasoning rarely trumps the fireworks of emotional appeals, at least not until the morning after.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:21 pmif i may throw my 2 cents in. my feelings about the link between autism and a type of vaccine came not from any study, but from several stories from parents of autistic children who observed that their child’s autism started after a bout of fevers from a vaccination. in one case, the child was the proper weight for that vaccine but not the proper age, it was given early.
since then, there’s not been really the kinds of studies done that really listen to what these parents have observed. maybe there is a link, but it’s nothing to do with mercury, and instead has to do with the child being too young for the dose.
either way, it would be interesting to note that people just don’t like getting vaccines anyways. take the latest swine flu vaccine. the only people who took the vaccine were people who normally take the yearly flu vaccine–about one third of the population? the only extra push went to pregnant mothers whom were more likely to have taken the swine flu vaccine, due i guess to the extra risk.
the people who took the swine flu vaccine the least? doctors, nurses, and other hospital workers. maybe this has more to do with people’s feelings about the effectiveness.
the swine flu vaccine shots did contain the mercury, according to the nurse who spoke about it on the news at the time. she assured everyone it was not a problem. so they are still using it in our vaccines. at school my son received the swine flu with this nasal thing. he never did get the booster, so i’m not sure why they bothered.
either way, all people can reserve the right to decide if they want a vaccine or if one should be given to their child.
February 5th, 2010 at 3:54 pm@Susan:
You’re kind of missing the point to all of this. Many people avoided vaccinations due in part to Wakefield’s now discredited study and the wave of un-informed acolytes (Age of Autism, Bill Maher, Jenny McCarthy, etc.) pushing his crap as loudly as they can.
The issues is not forcing people to get vaccinations, it’s drowning out the fradulent nonsense that Wakefield has started and letting people know that for the most part vaccines are safe and don’t cause autism.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:26 pmSusan, with regard to children being “too young for the dose,” in most cases when a vaccine is recommended starting at a certain age, it’s because before that time, the baby has circulating maternal antibodies that would cancel out the vaccine, not because there would be something dangerous about giving the vaccine too early.
It’s fine for people to decide for themselves whether to eat nothing but Ho-Hos, chew tobacco, or what-have-you, but vaccination is NOT just a personal decision. The unvaccinated pose a risk to babies too young to be vaccinated, as well as anyone with a legitimate medical contraindication or anyone in the small percentage who don’t become immune after vaccination.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:35 pm“We need to get people in a room and try to get them to agree about something—anything. We need to encourage moderation, and break down a polarized situation in which the anti-vaccine crowd essentially rejects modern medical research based on the equivalent of conspiracy theory thinking”
How? How is it possible to do that when, as you say yourself, “we’re really dealing with something very irrational here”? What does it mean to “encourage moderation” when one side won’t take any notice of evidence or argument? What does it mean to talk of a “polarized situation” as if the issue were fundamentally political rather than empirical? What use is it to import the language of political discussion and compromise into a pseudo-controversy over medical evidence? What reason is there to think that absolutely everything can be translated into the language of politics and “framing” and manipulation?
February 5th, 2010 at 5:15 pmAfter writing that, I clicked on Orac’s name in order to read his post on the subject. There I find a quoted passage:
“Hours and hours were spent in the IACC meetings wordsmithing the vaccine language. To groups like SafeMinds and people like Lyn Redwood, the Strategic Plan was a political document.”
Surely it’s a mistake to endorse that view by resorting to political language about moderation and polarization. This isn’t a job for James Carville, or even for Rahm Emmanuel.
February 5th, 2010 at 5:26 pmMooney seems to be under the impression that “moderation” is a universal acid which can dissolve any dispute.
He’s wrong. Moderation is useful in some circumstances, but counterproductive in others. When dealing with irrational, bullying liars like the leaders of the anti-vax movement, “bridge-building” would just give them another platform to shout their nonsense from. They will not compromise, and will exploit your kindness to further their own cause. They need to be marginalized and shown for what they actually are.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:10 pmAnd I’m sure that if you give Ben Stein a speaking position for a big Darwin Day festival, he’ll stop saying Darwin was responsible for the Holocaust, as opposed to using the podium to further air his garbage.
Are you even trying anymore, Mooney? This is incoherent and silly.
Not everyone is mollified by bridge building. You’d think after writing a book about Republicans declaring War on Science, and seeing them spend a year taking any attempts at bridge building simply as opportunities to shift the “moderate” position even further their way, you’d recognize what the bridge building approach gets you when you have people that oppose something on an ideological basis instead of a factual basis.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:29 pmIf one manages to build a bridge to the anti-vax loons, they will move the support posts.
February 5th, 2010 at 9:52 pmWith regards to vaccines there are several groups, only #3 and #4 below are approachable. Please focus on them!
1. People who distrust modern medicine entirely.
2. The more rabid members of the Autism lobby. The (presumably paid) leaders of non profit groups, one of the things that they may be after is their own self promotion.
3. Desperate parents of autistic children. They will latch on to anything that gives them hope. Because they are a generally middle class and educated group they make excellent troupers for people in category #2.
4. Average folks, the sort of people who are a bit uneasy about vaccines.
Category 4 includes:
Some may be persuaded by alternative medical providers.
Some may be swayed by the rabid anti-vaccine people above.
Some really, really hate getting shots.
Some of these people are questioning whether or not it makes sense to have a given vaccine.
Some people may have specific medical concerns about specific shots or series of shots and want a physician who will address their concerns by treating their families as individuals.
Some have read actual scientific studies questioning certain shots or are aware that standards in other medically advanced countries are different.
Some may take a wait and see attitude and don’t want to be first in line.
Some may figure, if they are in a low risk category, it would be better to just get the disease.
Some may belong to health organizations that won’t let people in their category get the vaccine at some point anyway, or have been told that due to a vaccine shortage their medical group is just not vaccinating people for a given disease at a given time. This makes it harder to see any urgency in doing it on their own later.
Some may have mainstream medical providers who tell them to avoid certain vaccines.
Some may just be lazy, and in the absence of a well organized public campaign such as that organized when I was a kid for polio, they just haven’t gotten in gear.
Some may be looking for reasons to justify their inaction because they aren’t covered by health insurance.
Category 4 people can be swayed by good science and a public commitment to excellent medical care. A blanket vaccine good/anti-vaccine bad stance turns these people off.
Isolate the rabid would be leaders by ignoring them.
February 6th, 2010 at 11:16 amSo the story now is that not only was Wakefield wrong about autism, but he was unethical. Both determinations were made simultaneously in time for a unified press release.
Sounds like someone really wants to get rid of him in the worst way. And those people stand to make fistful after fistful of money from government mandated contracts . The only reason for their existence is to make money.
The reality is modern science has no credibility. Zero. It is fraud after fraud after fraud, each rising to the level of a “universally accepted fact only loons would doubt” as interlocking self-interests (government, industry, academia, activists) determine what story/science is most beneficial to them.
It is much more rational to believe pumping 16 vaccines into a newborns immune system causes problem than it is to believe the people making 10s of billions of dollars off it have the least concern about the newborn’s health.
Mind your own business. It’s not your body. Whatever happened to freedom of choice?
P.S. I’d never heard of Wakefield before, but do know people whose healthy child became sickly and developed systemic problems after vaccines.
February 7th, 2010 at 4:40 amNo, we have know for a long time that Wakefield was wrong about autism – all later studies clearly shows this.
What has come to light since then has shown him to be unethical as well, but the two issues are unrelated – the GMC didn’t look into whether Wakefield was right or not, but only into the behavior of him and his two co-authors (the only two of the original co-authors who didn’t have their names retracted as authors of the paper). Looking at the behavior, and only the behavior, the GMC found numerous breaches of proper, ethical behavior.
Yes, we want to get rid of Wakefield. Unethical researchers are harming us all – especially when dealing with such important subjects as childhood vaccinations. The decline in vaccinations have resulted in deaths – what moral person would not want to get rid of someone causing the death of children through his outright deceit?
If one was to follow the money, it would be better to look at how Wakefield and his irk are milking the parents of autistic children. Among Wakefield’s ethical lapses were several related to financial issues.
Yes, medical companies make money, but the MMR vaccinations are not really money-makers, unlike what the anti-vaccination crowd think. There are plenty of other products which generate much more money – products which are frequently relevant when dealing with childhood diseases.
It’s ironic that you promote your ignorant stance through a medium created by modern science.
There are mistakes made in science, and even outright fraud and deceit, as in the case of Wakefield, but the scientific process is actually self-correcting in regard to these things. When a mistaken conclusion has been reached in a study, either through a honest mistake or through deceit, later studies will demonstrate this – this was the case with the possibility of an autism-MMR vaccination link, which Wakefield claimed, and which later studies proved wrong.
When it was demonstrated that Wakefield didn’t come honestly to his mistakes, but came to them through unethical behavior, the self-correcting process of science stepped in again, and The Lancet retracted the paper.
Contrast this with Wakefield’s supporters, who have no self-correcting methods, but instead disregard any new findings which doesn’t suit their selected conclusions.
Is it more rational to believe in the medical establishments around the world, or is it more rational to believe in a conspiracy theory which would not only include a worldwide conspiracy between all medical companies, but also a conspiracy between them and the governments, the medical sector, and all researchers working on this and related issues.
Personally, I tend to go with the sane assumption that the medical establishment actually, on the whole, tries to help people.
Neither is it your body.
Sure, we believe you – of course you never heard about Wakefield before. That’s why you wrote several paragraphs straight out of the anti-vaccination crowd’s handbook.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:51 amLike I said, the modern science has no credibility. Zero. Fraud after fraud after fraud. From Ptolemy fabricating the measurements used to claim a geocentric universe to the modern global warming movement.
Don’t confuse engineering with science. Engineering develops things through trial and error. Science can’t even completely explain an internal combustion engine. Engineers have to build it, then get it right through trial and error. Then it somehow gets credited to science? I don’t think so. Science claims understanding, but never actually has it.
Scientists blabber on using concepts like mass, energy, time, space, but when it comes down to it, they can’t even explain what these things are. They have a pattern of assumptions in their head instead. It undermines every aspect of what they say. They don’t know what they think they know and are to egocentric to realize and admit it.
Modern medical science solutions get established as facts because of interlocking self-interests and don’t require conspiracies.
Governments and medical interest (pharmaceutical companies) seek to expand their authority and importance in people’s lives to perpetuate themselves and grow. Taking command-control of people’s health is a good way to do that.
Researchers then see money is available if results can expand the roles of those providing money. They gather around the money source to mine it and produce studies with desired results.
Activists seek influence and moral authority so cluster around the scientists and government.
Voila. You are a loon if you don’t do what they say, no matter how obviously idiotic it is.
There are hundreds of studies showing links between vaccines and neurological disorders, not just one.
As with all medical studies, I look forward to 5 years from now when another study is published to find the current study was totally wrong and there is a link with autism and vaccines after all.
Medical science is fundamentally flawed to the extent it isn’t even a science. Researchers take a complex system and isolate parts to simplify, then make pronouncements about the entire system based on the subset, having ignored details and interactions they typically don’t even know exist.
The reality, is I know more and care more about my child than you, any pharmaceutical company, or government office possibly could.
You have no credibility. Medical researchers have no credibility. The government doesn’t. ZERO.
They have been wrong too many times, always in the direction of psychopathy, increasing their power and finances.
Come at me or my child with a syringe it’s the same as coming at us with a gun as far as I’m concerned.
February 7th, 2010 at 3:55 pmIt’s amazing how some people will keep on demonstrating their ignorance. Anthropogenic global warming is well documented, and except for a few cranks, universally accepted by people in the relevant fields.
Things like the internet is created through the scientific process – e.g. by development of algorithms. Yes, at a certain stage engineers become involved, but they build upon the science, not in spite of the science.
Your lack of understanding of basic concepts is not a fault of scientists. Also, this is probably one of the worst cases of projection I’ve ever seen.
[snip a lot of conspiracy nonsense]
Then I am sure you won’t have any problem giving us a reference to, say, ten peer-reviewed studies demonstrating such a link.
[snip more nonsense]
This is the sort of people Chris Mooney think we can build bridges to – people who disregard the entire scientific process, modern medicine, and entire fields of knowledge. How is it possible to, in any meaningful way, bridge such a gap – the wast abyss of ignorance cannot be crossed without an effort from the people affected by it, and yet the exact same ignorance keep them from attempting to gain the knowledge necessary to cross it.
February 8th, 2010 at 8:16 amI can’t wait to see Chris get Billy Bob in a room and try to get him to agree about something – anything. Go on, Chris! Coax him, persuade him! You’re the communications expert – show us how it’s done.
February 8th, 2010 at 12:23 pmThe Autism-MMR issue will not subside. This is because it offers 3 groups 3 tasty morsels: The groups are: (1) parents of children who range from profoundly deficient to children who are simply unruly and/or not candidates for Harvard; (2) the Autism Treatment/Cure Providers (like Wakefield) who make money, fame, on providing “services”; and (3) a few folks in the plaintiff’s bar and a few politicians who are hoping for settlements/judgments/votes, etc. out of the whole mess. The parents want full-time day care paid for by the state or, better yet, by private health plans who have been forced to cover so-called autism treatments; (2) the providers want to get paid (by the govt or by insurers) for providing low-paid assistants who play blocks are simple monitor the autistic kids at the “center/institute/clinic”; and (3) the parents and lawyers would like somebody with deep pockets to sue.
February 8th, 2010 at 1:59 pmAutismnews – you compare 911 Truthers to holocaust deniers.
Why did building 7 collapse? Was it really the first collapse of a steel framed building due to fire?
Susan, thank you for being a voice of sanity. I have a good friend who is a doctor. Her son is severely autistic. She feels certain it is due to vaccines. She was valedictorian of her class. No idiot. she had a hard time believing it, but her research made her. She’s not anti-vaccine, per se. But she is against the excessive (large increases) vaccination. And she, like the German Health minister, claims the swine flu vaccine is a useless, possibly harmful, sham to make money for Tamiflu.
Most of the people on this blog can only talk about this Andrew Wakefield guy. Well, I’ve never heard of him, but I have heard of Dr. Mercola, and he says vaccines are linked to autism. Maybe we should really listen to more of the debate, rather than less. Maybe we should trace the funding behind the studies that ‘disprove’ any link between autism and vaccination.
February 8th, 2010 at 2:29 pmThe majority of posts here are typical of the “I’m a rationalist/scientist/educated person and anyone who disagrees with me is clearly either stupid/ignorant/plain wicked” (the Richard Dawkins’ approach to debate).
As with all these issues – vaccines, swine flu, 9/11 etc. – an attitude which assumes a priori that challengers to the orthodoxy/current consensus/official view are stupid or worse betrays a closed mind.
The only thing that counts – in all cases – are the facts: not the assumptions, or the orthodox dogma. The facts say that the official story of 9/11 is a lie – unless you are prepared to believe that ‘al-Qaeda’ has the power to suspend the laws of physics multiple times on the same day (two completely disappearing, ‘vaporizing’, planes from which DNA is alleged to have nonetheless been recovered; three steel-framed buildings allegedly brought down by fire – the first and only such buildings ever to have collapsed from any cause – and falling neatly into their own footprints at close to freefall speed; cellphone calls which could not have been made; the list goes on and on).
The evidence for a massive ’swine flu’ scam is near-conclusive: thanks to a couple of German doctors and other members of the health sub-committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the scam by the WHO and the vaccine makers is now being properly investigated – but will the estimated $18 billion in revenue from sales of the unnecessary and worthless vaccine be repaid?
Unlike those who place their uninformed trust in any kind of vaccine (uninformed because they haven’t checked the evidence), Dr. Russ Null personally reviewed some 20,000 scientific papers relating to vaccine use and states unequivocally that there is no scientific evidence as to either their safety or their effectiveness.
Another area of pseudo-science is the unsafe and unreliable testing of all manner of pharmaceuticals on animals – on the faulty assumption that we’re just another kind of animal and so the effects can be assumed to be the same. Remember Thalidomide? Declared safe after animal testing ….
The root problem is so-called scientific materialism – the materialism is genuine, but it sure isn’t scientific. This age will be remembered as the age of ignorance – and arrogance.
A small footnote: hundreds of thousands of people (it could be as much as a million) are killed every year in the USA by prescription drugs. For each death one can assume four or five people who survive with seriously disabling side-effects. This is scientific medicine? And the ‘rationalists’ dare to call for homeopathy to be banned!
February 8th, 2010 at 5:30 pmThis piece is haughty, arrogant, belittling–typical strategy of the military/medical complex. Like a high priest for some rigid religion denouncing the practical practitioners. Where is the science in that? Center for American Progress? More like NGO for big pharma that is paid to steer the masses back to consuming highly questionable concoctions.
February 9th, 2010 at 5:01 amDear Susan, Billy Bob, Mitch, Paul Caroline, John Walsh,
Thanks so much for your comments.
As for getting the people in a room together – I am an ardent abortion rights activist. Do you think getting me in a room with people who are anti abortion rights would work. Please, don’t waste my time. And I would not go under any circumstance.
I experience the comments here so applauding of the Western medical model, the allopaths, that I could barely read them.
I too have never heard of Wakefield until this article.
The figures for autism or so scary, what are they now, 1 in 110 children, that I don’t understand how people cannot be worried about this. And it is certainly not because we can now detect the condition better. Please.
I do not understand how people can think that is is all right to give a tiny baby all those vaccinations, and usually at one time also, or is it two? The western docs have really done their work. So many people do not even question the sanity of this. I am so glad people have brought it up here.
Try being a parent of a child with autism and see how you feel. Amy Lanky had a child with autism who was cured by homeopathy. Her book, The Impossible Cure is a must read.
Are any of you touting the vaccinations aware of how many people die by taking their western meds correctly.
I find it amazing that so many people who are progressives in many areas are true believers when it comes to western medicine.
I do not want big Pharma telling me what to do with my body. I do not want any doctor telling me what to do with m y body. I do not want anyone wedded to the rational western medical model telling me what to do with my body.
The attacks here on people who are heartbroken and living lives with children whose lives have been broken by autism are beyond arrogant. Beyond the beyond.
What makes you think you have the Truth for all of us.
Because the rational western scientific mind tells you so.
i wept as I read most of these posts.
After all, I am a feminist, abortion rights, emotional woman.
February 9th, 2010 at 1:07 pmhttp://www.generationrescue.org/wakefield_statement2.html
Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey’s repudiation of the repudiation of Andrew Wakefield. They say “The retraction from The Lancet was a response to a ruling from England’s General Medical Council, a kangaroo court where public health officials in the pocket of vaccine makers served as judge and jury. Dr. Wakefield strenuously denies all the findings of the GMC and plans a vigorous appeal.”
February 9th, 2010 at 1:56 pmSome of you are missing the point. The 10 researchers who withdrew their names did so because the study was “inconclusive.” So the study doesn’t prove a connection between vaccines and autism–but it doesn’t disprove it either.
More importantly, the real causes of autism are still unknown. Makes you wonder what the hell is going on when one in 110 kids is autistic, yet there appears to be little urgency in solving the problem. To me, the answer is probably to be found when you follow the money. Big pharma and big chemicals may well be the culprits, and if a connection was found, they would go broke.
February 9th, 2010 at 5:02 pmAutistic kids need help, but this media sponsered increase in autism? Autism skyrocketing? Higher rates? See the YOU TUBE video: autism spectrum seems out of control and “autism epidemic rooted in abuse and misuse of word ‘autistic’ to get a better understanding of what’s going on pretty shocking
February 16th, 2010 at 1:28 am