Napster
No ⭐
http://download.thelancet.com/flatcontentassets/pdfs/S0140673610601754.pdf
Ooooops. So erm MMR/autism link is flawed.
Ooooops. So erm MMR/autism link is flawed.
-
Welcome to the ShrimperZone forums.
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which only gives you limited access.
Existing Users:.
Please log-in using your existing username and password. If you have any problems, please see below.
New Users:
Join our free community now and gain access to post topics, communicate privately with other members, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and free. Click here to join.
Fans from other clubs
We welcome and appreciate supporters from other clubs who wish to engage in sensible discussion. Please feel free to join as above but understand that this is a moderated site and those who cannot play nicely will be quickly removed.
Assistance Required
For help with the registration process or accessing your account, please send a note using the Contact us link in the footer, please include your account name. We can then provide you with a new password and verification to get you on the site.
Pubey
Guest
I wonder if this will get as much attention as the story originally got?
Matt the Shrimp
aka Harry Potter
That link has been seriously discredited for a very long time. That whole story was a disgraceful Daily Mail hype - possibly one of the most scandalous things they've done in a long time. I wish the rest of the press would grow a pair and publicly vilify the Mail for their behaviour - they truly were a national embarrassment on that occasion.
It was a flawed survey, produced by a man with financial gain to make by advancing his own thesis, and now which appears to have been improperly carried out in terms of the proper verification of results.
Shame on Wakefield and all involved.
Matt
Perth Bambi
Pinocchio
The consultant i worked with told me that the guy who came up with the link was nearly struck off for lying in his research.
MK Shrimper
Striker
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2005
- Messages
- 52,643
This was on Radio 2 today and I heard the likes of Fiona Phillips and other panic stricken mothers bleating about a Government cover up and conspiracy over the effects of the MMR jab and praising Wakefield for his work. I wonder where Phillips has hidden her medical doctorate........
Those mothers who are exposing their kids to now 6 individual shots at £85 a time, but unfortunately the mumps one is out of stock so there's a whole load of kids out there who, if they catch it, will possibly end up sterile. Imagine that conversation in 25 years time when these now grown up kids are trying for families of their own.....
Wakefield should be, at the least, struck off. In a just world he'd be imprisoned.
Those mothers who are exposing their kids to now 6 individual shots at £85 a time, but unfortunately the mumps one is out of stock so there's a whole load of kids out there who, if they catch it, will possibly end up sterile. Imagine that conversation in 25 years time when these now grown up kids are trying for families of their own.....
Wakefield should be, at the least, struck off. In a just world he'd be imprisoned.
Thorpe Groyney
Open your mind
To put some flesh on the bones of the story .....
In the late 90's the Daily Mail gave extensive, scare-mongering coverage to Wakefield's findings. A single paediatrician had observed just 12 autustic children with bowel disease. He hypothesised that the autism in 8 of the 12 might have had its origins in the bowel disease. This in turn might have been connected to the measles virus in the MMR vaccine.
When the possible link, however, was tested across the globe with millions of children it was proven to be entirely unfounded. There was no link or even the vaguest of corroborating evidence for the one doctor's hypothesis. It was even noted than the rise in autism occurred before the MMR vaccine had been made available.
The paediatrician's research, it was also revealed, was funded by a pressure group trying to find a link between the vaccine and autism. None of this was reported by the Daily Mail.
Due to this highly irresponsible behaviour parents unwittingly put their child's health in very real danger because a seed of fear had been planted. In 2006, a memo was released which stated 'Unless this is rectified urgently and children are immunised there will be further outbreaks and more unnecessary deaths.'
I hope the good doctor and the editorial team at the Daily Mail at the time can sleep at night. I sincerely hope, too, that their children are okay. Because of their actions, however, parents across the globe are parents no longer. Prosecution seems eminently reasonable. And if Fiona Phillips continues to champion their dangerous and potentially lethal cause, perhaps a spell behind bars away from her family would do her ignorant soul a bit of good.
In the late 90's the Daily Mail gave extensive, scare-mongering coverage to Wakefield's findings. A single paediatrician had observed just 12 autustic children with bowel disease. He hypothesised that the autism in 8 of the 12 might have had its origins in the bowel disease. This in turn might have been connected to the measles virus in the MMR vaccine.
When the possible link, however, was tested across the globe with millions of children it was proven to be entirely unfounded. There was no link or even the vaguest of corroborating evidence for the one doctor's hypothesis. It was even noted than the rise in autism occurred before the MMR vaccine had been made available.
The paediatrician's research, it was also revealed, was funded by a pressure group trying to find a link between the vaccine and autism. None of this was reported by the Daily Mail.
Due to this highly irresponsible behaviour parents unwittingly put their child's health in very real danger because a seed of fear had been planted. In 2006, a memo was released which stated 'Unless this is rectified urgently and children are immunised there will be further outbreaks and more unnecessary deaths.'
I hope the good doctor and the editorial team at the Daily Mail at the time can sleep at night. I sincerely hope, too, that their children are okay. Because of their actions, however, parents across the globe are parents no longer. Prosecution seems eminently reasonable. And if Fiona Phillips continues to champion their dangerous and potentially lethal cause, perhaps a spell behind bars away from her family would do her ignorant soul a bit of good.
Pubey
Guest
The good that has come out of this is that research as poorly done as his wouldn't even be touched by a rubbish journal, let alone the Lancet.
Ethics approval and research governance has also tightened up 10000%, even to the point where it's probably too inhibitive, however cases like Wakefield show that it's a small price to pay.
Ben Goldacre might be a bit annoying, but at least there is a much more vocal opposition to media scaremongering/quack medicine/sham medicine etc etc than there was a few years ago.
Pubey
Guest
decent summary by Goldacre:
Here’s a very brief piece I bashed out for the Guardian newsdesk today on the Wakefield finding, the further reading below will be more helpful if you’re interested in the story.
Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Thursday 28 January 2009
In medicine, “untoward incident inquiries” tend to look for systems failures, rather than one individual to blame.
It’s certainly clear that Andrew Wakefield and his co-defendants failed to meet the high standards required of doctors in research. The GMC have found he was “misleading” “dishonest” and “irresponsible” in the way he described where the children in the 1998 paper came from, by implying that they were routine clinic referrals. As the GMC have also found, these children were subjected to a programme of unpleasant and invasive tests which were not performed in their own clinical interest, but rather for research purposes, and these tests were conducted without ethics committee approval.
These tests were hardly trivial: they included colonoscopy, where the child is sedated, and a long tube with a camera and a light passed through the anus and deep into the bowell; lumbar puncture, where a needle is placed into the spine to get cerebrospinal fluid; barium meals and more. It’s plainly undesirable for doctors to go around conducting tests like these on children for their own research interests without very careful external scrutiny.
But there is the wider context: Wakefield was at the centre of a media storm about the MMR vaccine, and is now being blamed by journalists as if he were the only one at fault. In reality, the media are equally guilty.
Even if it had been immaculately well conducted – and it certainly wasn’t – Wakefield’s “case series report” of 12 children’s clinical anecdotes would never have justified the conclusion that MMR causes autism, despite what journalists claimed: it simply didn’t have big enough numbers to do so. But the media repeatedly reported the concerns of this one man, generally without giving methodological details of the research, either because they found it too complicated, inexplicably, or because to do so would have undermined their story.
As the years passed by, media coverage deteriorated further. Claims by researchers who never published scientific papers to back up their claims were reported in the newspapers as important new scientific breakthroughs, while at the very same time, evidence showing no link between MMR and autism, fully published in peer reviewed academic journals, was simply ignored. This was cynical, and unforgivable. Then, after Tony Blair refused to say if his son had received the vaccine, the commentators rolled in. Experts from Carol Vorderman to Fiona Philips from GMTV have all shared their concerns about MMR with the nation. Less than a third of all broadsheet reports on MMR in 2002 mentioned that the overwhelming evidence showed no link between MMR and autism.
The MMR scare has now petered out. It would be nice if we could say this was because the media had learnt their lessons, and recognised the importance of scientific evidence, rather than one bloke’s hunch. Instead it has terminated because of the behaviour of one man, Andrew Wakefield, which undermined the emotional narrative of their story. The media have developed no insight into their own role, and for this reason, there will be another MMR.
Here’s a very brief piece I bashed out for the Guardian newsdesk today on the Wakefield finding, the further reading below will be more helpful if you’re interested in the story.
Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Thursday 28 January 2009
In medicine, “untoward incident inquiries” tend to look for systems failures, rather than one individual to blame.
It’s certainly clear that Andrew Wakefield and his co-defendants failed to meet the high standards required of doctors in research. The GMC have found he was “misleading” “dishonest” and “irresponsible” in the way he described where the children in the 1998 paper came from, by implying that they were routine clinic referrals. As the GMC have also found, these children were subjected to a programme of unpleasant and invasive tests which were not performed in their own clinical interest, but rather for research purposes, and these tests were conducted without ethics committee approval.
These tests were hardly trivial: they included colonoscopy, where the child is sedated, and a long tube with a camera and a light passed through the anus and deep into the bowell; lumbar puncture, where a needle is placed into the spine to get cerebrospinal fluid; barium meals and more. It’s plainly undesirable for doctors to go around conducting tests like these on children for their own research interests without very careful external scrutiny.
But there is the wider context: Wakefield was at the centre of a media storm about the MMR vaccine, and is now being blamed by journalists as if he were the only one at fault. In reality, the media are equally guilty.
Even if it had been immaculately well conducted – and it certainly wasn’t – Wakefield’s “case series report” of 12 children’s clinical anecdotes would never have justified the conclusion that MMR causes autism, despite what journalists claimed: it simply didn’t have big enough numbers to do so. But the media repeatedly reported the concerns of this one man, generally without giving methodological details of the research, either because they found it too complicated, inexplicably, or because to do so would have undermined their story.
As the years passed by, media coverage deteriorated further. Claims by researchers who never published scientific papers to back up their claims were reported in the newspapers as important new scientific breakthroughs, while at the very same time, evidence showing no link between MMR and autism, fully published in peer reviewed academic journals, was simply ignored. This was cynical, and unforgivable. Then, after Tony Blair refused to say if his son had received the vaccine, the commentators rolled in. Experts from Carol Vorderman to Fiona Philips from GMTV have all shared their concerns about MMR with the nation. Less than a third of all broadsheet reports on MMR in 2002 mentioned that the overwhelming evidence showed no link between MMR and autism.
The MMR scare has now petered out. It would be nice if we could say this was because the media had learnt their lessons, and recognised the importance of scientific evidence, rather than one bloke’s hunch. Instead it has terminated because of the behaviour of one man, Andrew Wakefield, which undermined the emotional narrative of their story. The media have developed no insight into their own role, and for this reason, there will be another MMR.
leeblue
Members⭐
If I had a pound for every parent who questioned the validity of the MMR jab everytime I went to give it I would be one rich nurse, even to this day I still get parents very undecided on the matter, all thanks to this ridiculous scenario. I believe in the vaccination programme in this country and wish we could vaccinate against more, the press have a lot to answer for when it comes to health scares, One sensationalist headline caused a multitude of problems
MK Shrimper
Striker
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2005
- Messages
- 52,643
So this morning I see the media are digging all this up again.
Indeed, because measles is again on the increase due to the people who didnt get their kids immunised. I bet there are still parents who are worried about the autism link.
When there was a suspicion of one there was massive media coverage, but nothing of the sort since when its accepted there is no link at all.
When there was a suspicion of one there was massive media coverage, but nothing of the sort since when its accepted there is no link at all.
londonblue
Topgun Pilot
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2004
- Messages
- 19,195
At the time of the original scare a friend of mine had both his children vaccinated using the MMR vaccine. As far as I was concerned, if he was prepared to allow his children to be vaccinated then it was safe. This friend of mine is (and was then) a consultant anaesthetist. He read the research and decided it was complete rubbish.
Years later when we were offered the MMR for our children I had no hesitation in allowing then to have it.
Years later when we were offered the MMR for our children I had no hesitation in allowing then to have it.
MK Shrimper
Striker
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2005
- Messages
- 52,643
I have no fears at all, and in six months or so my daughter will be having the first round of the MMR. Bet at her nursery they'll be kids that are not vaccinated.
ShrimperZone Sponsors
ShrimperZone - Player Sponsorship
Southend United Away Travel
All At Sea Fanzine
