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-Short Attention Span Theater-

Author of vaccine-caused autism study poised to make millions off of conveniently related patent

2011-01-12

The author of a now-retracted study linking autism to childhood vaccines expected a related medical test to rack up sales of up to $43 million a year, a British medical journal reported Tuesday.
Git a rope ...
The report in the medical journal BMJ is the second in a series sharply critical of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who reported the link in 1998. It follows the journal's declaration last week that the 1998 paper in which Wakefield first suggested a connection between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine was an "elaborate fraud."
Find a tree ...
The venture "was to be launched off the back of the vaccine scare, diagnosing a purported -- and still unsubstantiated -- 'new syndrome,'" BMJ reported Tuesday. A prospectus for potential investors suggested that a test for the disorder Wakefield dubbed "autistic enterocolitis" could produce as much as 28 million pounds ($43 million U.S.) in revenue, the journal reported, with "litigation driven testing" of patients in the United States and Britain its initial market.
Insert perp ...
Among his partners in the enterprise was the father of one of the 12 children in the 1998 study that launched the controversy, the journal reported.
Oh, did I put up the noose picture? Sorry about that. Hopefully everyone here will take it the right way.
Rhetorically speaking, of course...

Posted by:gorb

#12 Thats right gorb, at least at my household. Wife didn't want daughter to get immunized because the tv news. Had to convince her that even if, and that is a big if, the 20-30 kids developed autism because of the immunization, how many millions of immunizations are dispersed each year? I'm more likely to be killed by a dog walking to my car than daughter getting autism - if - it isn't just the news blowing crap out of proportion like they do every storm.

If I were part of this, I'd stay the hell away from my wife.

Posted by: swksvolFF 2011-01-12 20:57

#11 What causes autism? Genetic factors, exacerbated by problems in pregnancy and labor. Environmental factors may cause some behaviors; this angle is still under study. Brain injuries (see problems with labor and prolonged fetal distress). A few--a VERY few--kids respond "miraculously" to some dietary controls, suggesting that the condition that triggered their autistic behavior is caused by a different set of genetic factors having to do with how their bodies handle a given set of nutrients. NONE OF WHICH HAS A DAMN THING TO DO WITH THE VACCINE.

Wakefield was funded by tort lawyers.
He stood to make millions on the medical test.
He fudged his data.
Kids died of measles and other complications because of Wakefield's fudged documents.
If it slithers like a viper, hisses like a viper, has the markings of a viper, it's a viper.

Posted by: mom 2011-01-12 19:21

#10 I'm talking complex, here.

Complex as in too complex for him to go flapping his jaws just yet. He has had parents withholding vaccines from their kids on a half-baked theory. A theory so complex that they are looking for minuscule correlation coefficients.

Best case: More kids are dying or getting screwed up than are getting autism.

Posted by: gorb 2011-01-12 17:36

#9 Moose, it doesn't matter if he's wrong or right. And it doesn't matter what social impact the study has. All what matters is that the study is carried out properly. And it's the only thing that matters, because it's the only way that works.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-01-12 17:22

#8 Grom and Gorb: I'm talking complex, here.

What we know: 10% of children develop fever, malaise and a rash 521 days after the first vaccination; 5% develop temporary joint pain.

Japan, however, has discontinued using MMR, and goes for three separate injections, but their rate of diagnosed autism has continued to increase. This statistical notation is the best evidence that there is no correlation between MMR and autism.

That is, we haven't scientifically proven anything either way. Wakefield saw a trend in one direction, and assigned a cause and effect relationship to it. The Japanese see a trend in a different direction that might disprove a cause and effect relationship.

Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-01-12 17:02

#7 It's how many things get done these days.

Ain't that the truth! From science to education to the government to the press/mass media. We have quite a task ahead.

Posted by: ryuge 2011-01-12 15:34

#6 Anonymoose, he's hidden his deception in an area that is not easy to comprehend. It's how many things get done these days.

Posted by: gorb 2011-01-12 15:11

#5 'moose look up "scientific method".

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-01-12 11:48

#4 Steve White: He may be a crook and opportunist, but his theory could possibly be correct.

That is, it is now known that the immune system is interactive with both the intestinal flora and a slew of parasites, many of which are no longer common, that humans adapted to over a great length of time.

This is why, for example, Sulfasalazine, which impacts intestinal flora, is used as one effective treatment for psoriasis, an autoimmune disease. Yet it is definitely not a universal treatment, does not cure the disease, and for years they had no idea at all why. They still just know it works, but they aren't close to fully knowing why.

Likewise, the Germans are using pig whip worms to treat Crohn's disease. Just their presence in the GI tract can have a profoundly normalizing effect on the immune system.

His claim was that MMR, in a very few children at a young age, caused GI inflammation, and this inflammation somehow impacted a genetic trigger, causing or intensifying autism. It would take many years and any number of studies to either prove or disprove this theory, and they haven't been done.

Unfortunately, because of this hubbub, they may likely never be done, a great loss to medical science.

So whatever else, the theory is not crackpot, because there is nowhere near the amount of evidence to say it's wrong, and while there isn't evidence to prove it, either, it is parallel to known immunological paradigms.

There are just too many unknowns, here.

Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-01-12 11:15

#3 Sorry Moose but I disagree. Wakefield is a crook and opportunist who came out with a crackpot theory for no other reason than he could make money on it. He had all sorts of deals with plaintiff lawyers who wanted to sue the vaccine makers.

Measles is deadly. Rubella and mumps are serious. There's only a couple thousand years of human history and couple hundred years of organized biomedical science in support of that.

Wakefield's theories might or might not be interesting, but he is not and will never be the person to talk about them ever again.

Posted by: Steve White 2011-01-12 09:46

#2 Actually, the rope is appropriate, in that what is being done here is more like institutional lynching than good science.

A capsule summary of Wakefield's theory was that the three vaccine combination in MMR vaccine, as well as a measles infection in one case, could cause a previously undescribed inflammatory bowel condition, and that it, the bowel condition, would, in a small number of children, either activate an existing predisposition to autism, or perhaps bring about the condition in a normally healthy child.

The immediate firestorm by the medical community, which included broad spectrum testimony before congress, was almost cringe-worthy, containing several arguments:

1) Measles, Mumps and Rubella are far *deadlier* in children than the "statistically insignificant" number who *might* become autistic. (That is, they had not yet challenged Wakefield's theory.)

2) It is terribly hard to vaccinate children with a single vaccination for three diseases. If the three were given as individual vaccinations, as Wakefield suggested, it would be much more expensive, and many children would miss out on one or two of the three.

3) (And this one hurt) The conclusion that it doesn't matter if he is right or not, that vaccination is so important, that the medical community are willing to accept a limited number of casualties of those harmed by vaccination. (This was long the case with the oral polio vaccine, as a certain number of people were known to be harmed by it.)

The bottom line is that, sad to say, the medical community is painfully correct.

An argument can be made that trashing Wakefield may do more harm than good, and his theory of bowel inflammation deserves more research, as it is already known that similar conditions do cause all sorts of autoimmune diseases.

But I don't like the idea that pragmatism should rule the day over science. That is too damn much like MMGW.

Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-01-12 08:49

#1 Now he can be sued for damages!

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-01-12 06:05

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