It seems that some people are either unaware or just refuse to know the facts surrounding the Wakefield story.
Andrew Wakefied, a GI surgeon, (not a pediatric specialist) came out with a study that showed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Specifically the MMR vaccine and not the single vaccine or the measles virus.
Despite no one being able to get the same results he supposedly obtained, the study was still damaging and made people scared.
Later it was revealed that despite claiming no conflict of interest, Wakefield was being paid an hourly fee by Attorney Jonathan Barr who was working on a class action lawsuit against the pharmaceutical companies to conduct the ‘study’, all that was needed was a study and expert witness, Wakefiled was willing to satisfy both of Barrs problems.
Furthermore, Wakefield had patented a ‘safe vaccine’ prior to even conducting his study.
Basically the results were in before the study was even conducted, now they just had to have it on paper so they can cash out.
Ok, so we all know that Wakefield is guilty of hiding his conflict of interest and also wanting to monetize from all of this, does this mean that the results should be discarded?
So Wakefield further lied about having approval of the ethics committee on the tests that were done, including invasive tests on the children, extremely unethical.
Unethical and lied, while this does not yet disprove his study, these were the grounds for Wakefield losing is license and partial redaction.
Brian Deer, (investigative reporter, mainly against pharmaceutical companies) began digging deeper and unearthed that every single piece of data Wakefield presented in his study was manipulated only so that it supports Wakefields theory.
a. 12 children were included in the study.
b. Some were never diagnosed with autism, despite Wakefield stating that all were diagnosed with autism.
c. Most children had noted behavioral symptoms that were documented by their pediatricians before receiving the MMR shot consistent with their later diagnosis. Wakefield wrote they were all perfectly normal prior to the MMR Shot. Conveniently omitting this very important fact.
d. Wakefield wrote that the onset of symptoms for all children were within 6 to 14 days after getting the MMR shot, the parents all said that this was not correct and not even what they had told Wakefield, even the parents that were under the impression that the vaccine resulted in their child’s symptoms, stated that symptoms began 6 to 12 moths later. Wakefield knew that falsifying this data is vital in order to use the study in a trial against vaccine companies.
e. Unlike wakefield reported in his study, all children aside from one had noted on their charts (by the Royal Free hospital where the ‘study’ was conducted) that their bowel was normal, this was changed by Wakefield to fit his theory.
f. As Nick Chadwick revealed, Wakefields own lab actually proved him wrong, yet he lied in his reports.
g. As was later revealed, two other labs had failed to get the results that Wakefield claimed to have gotten, this was not in the study.
Just in case someone says that there is a huge conspiracy here, its very true and it was uncovered and proven by Brian Deer.
The entire study was a fabrication, all with the intention of making a lot of money. Not only was there a huge conflict of interest and extremely unethical, the entire study had fabricated data.