I'll go farther and say that it was my impression that there was *no*
evidence whatever to support the MMR-Autism link. I'd be happy to stand
corrected, but this is potentially important as I know many people (well, at
least several) who are abstaining from vaccinating their children altogether
out of fear of various purported side effects of vaccines.
Does anyone know of anything credible supporting the autism hypothesis?
Paul Okami
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul C Bernhardt" <[email protected]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2009 8:11 AM
Subject: Re: [tips] "Wakefield redux" redux
Is there any scholarship behind all this ado, or is it all crusaders on
one
side or another?
First, I admit ignorance on the state of the science.
My understanding based on how I hear colleagues talk about it is that
there
are scant scientific findings of dubious quality supporting a relationship
between the MMR vaccine and autism. And, there are many well done studies
that failed to find a relationship.
Does that sum it up, and this latest mix up in the press is just that:
posturing in the press?
--
Paul Bernhardt
Frostburg State University
Frostburg, MD, USA
On 2/16/09 2:24 AM, "Allen Esterson" <[email protected]> wrote:
A brief comment on the ongoing Wakefield saga. Stephen Black highlighted
that Brian Deer, whose Huffington Post comments Mike Palij linked to at
http://tinyurl.com/c8xykb , has a (dubious) record of campaigning against
vaccines. I'll just add that the journalist Melanie Phillips whom Deer
quotes in support of his arguments in the Huffington Post article has a
long record of vociferous campaigning in favour of Wakefield in the Daily
Mail. That's not to say that what she writes in the quotes provided by
Deer
is necessarily erroneous, only that it should be treated with caution.
Allen Esterson
Former lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London
http://www.esterson.org
********************************
[tips] "Wakefield redux" redux
sblack
Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:38:25 -0800
Mike Palij (on February 11) brought to our attention a recent dust-up in
the autism-vaccine war.
The focus was on Andrew Wakefield, the British doctor who first proposed
in a 1998 report in the respected medical journal _Lancet_ that autism
was caused by MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccination. This claim was
influential in support of the anti-vaccination movement, and appears to
have helped persuade many parents to refuse vaccination as possibly
harmful to their children. But in 2004 ten of Wakefield's 12 co-authors
took the unusual step of retracting the paper. Currently Wakefield is on
trial before the General Medical Council (of Britain) on charges of
professional misconduct relating to his research. These charges seem to
have arisen, at least in part, as a result of an investigation by the
London Times journalist, Brian Deer. Deer has since written a further
article for the Times alleging that Wakefield fabricated his data.
As Mike noted, Keith Olbermann, an American TV commentator, recently
named Wakefield as his "Worst Person in the World". This is apparently on
the basis of the accusations in Deer's most recent Times article.
Mike then told us that "Brian Deer... apparently is not a disinterested
reviewer of facts. This was brought out in David Kirby's blog on the
Huffingtom Post... Kirby presents details about Brian Deer that cast
doubt on Deer's objectively and veracity; see:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/keith-olbermann-todays-be_b_166
103.html "
Mike notes that "Olberman has since offered an apology (correction?) for
his Worst Person nomination" but, appropriately cautious, Mike also
points out that " Whether David Kirby is a disinterested reviewer is also
open to review, as he has written at least one book on the vaccine-autism
controvery".
This seems to be an understatement. Kirby's book is called Evidence of
Harm - Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy
According to Wikipedia, "Evidence of Harm was reviewed negatively in the
British Medical Journal. The reviewer described Kirby's book as "woefully
one-sided", and wrote: "In his determination to provide an account that
is sympathetic to the parents, Kirby enters into the grip of the same
delusion and ends up in the same angry and paranoid universe into which
campaigners have descended".
OK, now that I've got through reviewing all that, here's what's new. The
"Autism News Beat", which bills itself as "an evidence-based resource for
journalists" claims that Olbermann was wrong to retract his "Worst
Person" award to Wakefield and to criticize Deer, and that Olbermann
retracted due to pressure from the anti-vaccination movement. In the
words of Autism News Beat, all Deer was guilty of was "investigative
journalism".
You can read it here:
http://autism-news-beat.com/?p=318&cpage=1#comment-2209
So I think the best we can do is hope for some clarity on all this from
the General Medical Council when it completes its trial.
Stephen
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Bishop's University e-mail: [email protected]
2600 College St.
Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7
Canada
*****************************
[tips] Wakefield Redux
Mike Palij
Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:08:13 -0800
Since the first article on Wakefield came out on the London
Times website, a couple of events of note have happened.
(1) Remember that the Times of London is a Rupert Murdoch
paper. That will either raise or lower the truth value on your
truthometer (or bring to mind quaint headlines like this one
from the Murdoch NY Post: "Headless Body Founrd in Topless
bar". See: http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/anniversary/35th/n_8568/
(2) Brian Deer, the writer of the London Times article
apparently is not a disinterested reviewer of facts. This was
brought out in David Kirby's blog on the Huffingtom Post
after Keith Oblerman had listed Wakefield as his "Worst
Person in the World"; see:
http://skepticcat.blogspot.com/2009/02/olberman-andrew-wakefield-worst-pers
on.html
However, Kirby presents details about Brian Deer that
cast doubt on Deer's objectively and veracity; see:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/keith-olbermann-todays-be_b_16610
3.html
Olberman has since offered an apology (correction?) for his
Worst Person nomination
(3) Olberman is in a perpatual war with Bill O'Reilly and when
he quotes Murdoch he does it in as "Pirate voice" with Arrgh!
thrown in. It is ironic that he used an article in a Murdoch paper
which he later had to retract.
(4) Whether David Kirby is a disinterested reviewer is also open
to review, as he has written at least on book on the vaccine-autism
controvery.
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
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