Andrew Wakefield's Lethal Legacy

American Spectator ^ | Robert M. Goldberg

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

On Wednesday, the British Journal of Medicine published the first of several articles detailing the systematic fraud Andrew Wakefield engaged in writing a study in 1998 claiming measles-mumps-rubella vaccine triggered autism in 12 children. News outlets have posted accounts of the fraud as 'breaking news." They also note Wakefield's false research led to fear of vaccines and to kids dying from lack of shots.

Wakefield's fraud is beside the point. He was able to do so much damage for so long because the media, the scientific community, politicians and trial lawyers found it in their interest to believe and lionize him. We ate our young. Wakefield just gave us the recipe.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I know this is "old news", but he sums it up well. The most important medical advance in the 20th Century was the double blind clinical trial. The more we deviate from traditional methods of verification and rely on courts and juries to decide important issues, the more of this kind of thing we can expect.

The CRU must have envied Dr. Wakefield.

[Leisler]

Where’s Al Gore and Linthy Gwam ( Lindsey Graham )? Something stupid got by them?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Why statistical significance must live.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Proof by press release is right in their wheelhouse.

[gusopol3]

He didn't fool us. He was given a platform. He created a narrative people wanted to believe and profited from.

I think the writer was thinking about somebody else here....BO

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

You can say the same thing about any number of popular panic mongers. The press is complicit because they are scientific illiterates and unprincipled. A lot of clever people don’t have the good sense to know what they do not know.

[M.K. Borders]

Not so fast blaming the press, not this time.

I have a autistic son yet the very first time I ever heard the name Andrew Wakefield was on C-SPAN when he was in front of Dan Burton's committee.

That was when the man's credibility took off.

[Miss_Meyet]

I know this is "old news", but he sums it up well...

I actually am a Board Certified School Nurse who substitutes at times in a public school devoted solely autistic children, so I am probably ineligible to comment any further.

But, I sincerely appreciate your posting this article. Anyway, it's not that old-- Fox & Friends had the story earlier this morning.

[Miss_Meyet]

Yikes. Time to stop typing.

...a public school devoted solely to autistic children...