Charismatic Doctor at Vortex of Vaccine Dispute

LONDON -- The first lesson a doctor needs to learn, says Andrew Wakefield, is to listen to his patients. And so when Rosemary Kessick brought in her son William in 1996, Wakefield listened carefully.

She described how William had deteriorated at age 15 months from a healthy developing toddler into a withdrawn, incommunicative child who screamed throughout the night, and how his bowels seemed on fire with constant diarrhea and pain. All of this had started, she said, within days after William received the MMR -- an injection known here as the "triple jab," designed to vaccinate youngsters against measles, mumps and rubella.

In the end Wakefield, a specialist in intestinal disease, did more than just listen. Working with colleagues, he came up with the hypothesis that William and other victims were suffering from a unique form of intestinal disorder related to their autism that might have been triggered by the MMR. He also claimed that the vaccine might be one reason for the soaring rates of autism in the developed world over the past two decades.

Public health officials insist he is wrong. While Wakefield continues publishing reports supporting his theory, study after study has failed to find a link between autism and MMR, and large numbers of doctors question his work.


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February 23, 2004

The smearing of Andrew Wakefield

Daily Mail, 23 February 2004

From the moment that surgeon Andrew Wakefield first published his explosive theory suggesting a link between autism, bowel disease and the measles, mumps and rubella triple jab, the government and the medical establishment have been determined to discredit him and thus destroy his research.

Over the weekend, it looked as if they had finally managed it. The Sunday Times suggested that Mr Wakefield’s original Lancet paper in 1998, which first indicated such links, was a scandalous manipulation of the evidence.

The report claimed Mr Wakefield had failed to tell the Lancet he had also received legal aid funds to carry out a separate study, as part of the legal case being brought by parents of autistic children against the MMR manufacturers. To make matters even worse, it alleged, some of the children in the Lancet paper were involved in the court case. The Lancet study was therefore fatally compromised, since the parents had stood to gain financially if Mr Wakefield’s researches had enabled them to claim compensation.

No sooner did the story appear than the Health Secretary Dr John Reid demanded an urgent inquiry. However, upon examination the picture significantly changes. The Sunday Times originally made a series of claims against Mr Wakefield, which were all actually rejected by the Lancet except for the conflict of interest. But when one looks at the facts, this too begins to look a bit different.

Mr Wakefield’s legal aid-funded study was commissioned by solicitor Richard Barr, who had been approached by parents of children sick with autism and bowel disease who wanted to take legal action against the manufacturers of MMR. Mr Barr wanted to know whether there was clinical evidence to support such a case. So he asked Mr Wakefield to look at possible links between measles virus and bowel disease.

The Sunday Times report claimed that four or five of the 12 children in the entirely separate Lancet study were part of this legal action. But their parents only decided to go to court after they had been accepted for treatment by Mr Wakefield’s team at London’s Royal Free hospital.

The implication that they were selected because they were litigants with a financial interest in the results of the clinical examination is grotesque. All twelve of them were referred through normal NHS processes, either from doctors’ recommendations or after desperate parents, having heard on the grapevine of Mr Wakefield’s unusual sympathy towards these problems, had contacted him of their own volition. It was only subsequently that a few of them became part of the legal case.

So the two Wakefield studies were entirely separate, with no cross over. True, the Lancet editor has said the second study should have been disclosed to avoid the ‘perception’ of a conflict of interest, and that had he known of its existence, he wouldn’t have published Mr Wakefield’s paper which was ‘fatally flawed’ as a result.

But surely Mr Wakefield is being accused of a conflict of interest which did not occur at the time, in order to create the false impression that he and his colleagues deliberately skewed their selection of children for investigation in the Lancet exercise to support a crack-brained theory. Surely, he is being damned by the misleading application of hindsight, which has seriously misrepresented what happened. In other words, this appears to be nothing other than a smear.

It is also a smear whose timing should raise a few eyebrows. For the Legal Services Commission has now cut off legal aid funding for the parents, which threatens to stop the case altogether. It just so happened that Mr Barr applied for judicial review of that decision a week ago, and judgment has been reserved. So this smear looks very like an attempt to influence the court and ensure the case dies.

And make no mistake, the stakes could not be higher. The drug companies, the government and the medical establishment have every reason to fear this case going ahead.

For although Mr Wakefield is the focus of the frenzy, many other pieces of evidence suggest that concern over the vaccine is by no means confined to one possibly obsessive doctor. Although the vast majority of children clearly have no adverse reaction whatever from the MMR jab, the number of families with a very different story to tell indicate that, for a small proportion of children, something worrying may be happening.

What is so striking is the sheer volume of parents, not just in Britain but in America and other countries, who tell the same story of children who were developing normally — often with videos to prove it — only to stop developing and start suffering bowel disease after the MMR jab.

Moreover, vaccine-strain measles virus has been found in the gut of some children with autism and bowel disease. Earlier this month Dr Jeff Bradstreet, a US autism researcher, presented evidence to the Institute of Medicine in Washington showing measles virus in the cerebral-spinal fluid of three children with autism and bowel disease.

This virus most definitely should not be there; and the question is how it got there in children who had been vaccinated against measles. None of this proves MMR causes either bowel disease or autism; but it certainly indicates a cause for concern.

The government insists, however, that research overwhelmingly shows the vaccine is safe. But this is not so. The research in question investigates patterns of disease based on medical records. But this is unlikely to get to the bottom of the issue, since countless parents have said doctors not only failed to diagnose autism or bowel disease in their children but dismissed out of hand the parents’ reports that the problems seemed to start with the triple jab.

In any event, these studies do not prove MMR is safe. They say there is no proof it is not safe, a very different matter. The official misrepresentation of these conclusions is one of the most worrying things about this controversy. This is particularly so since the government had introduced the first type of MMR vaccine in 1989 — which it had to withdraw three years later because it was shown to cause aseptic meningitis — even though it knew at the time that Canada had already withdrawn it because it was found to be unsafe.

And as for conflicts of interest, what about the many scientists on the government’s vaccine safety bodies who are funded by the pharmaceutical companies?

Certainly, it is extremely worrying if parents are refusing to vaccinate their children against measles, mumps and rubella, with the dangers they pose of serious illness or even death. But not only does the government refuse to allow the use of less worrying single jabs — it also refuses to do the one thing that could settle this matter one way or the other.

Instead of calling for an inquiry into Mr Wakefield and dismissing parents’ concerns with such contempt, it should commission an independent, clinical investigation of affected children. Only then will we be able to judge who in this wretched story is actually right, and only then will all children get the vaccinations they need.

Posted by melanie at February 23, 2004 11:45 AM

Thimerosol(sp?)in these vaccines has been linked to autism, etc.

Ah, but this was taken out of vaccines a few years ago, with no change in autism.

I worked years ago at a retarded institution (when they still existed). A small subgroup of autistic kids were normal until they developed an "ear infection" or "pneumonia" or a high fever, then they started going down hill psychologically and physically.

I suspect it was due to viral encephalitis, since we saw cases of chickenpox and measles that did this...

But I'm simply not confident that there is actually an increase in "autism"...

You see, most of the "autistic" children that I see are merely retarded with behavior/cognitive problems...but since the movie "Rain Man", it is more politically correct to call them "autistic" than retarded, even though a lot of these kids were not really autistic (i.e. many had warm personalities, not cold ones like in autism)...

But 30 years ago, autism was blamed on "cold mothering"...implying a blame to parents (see Konner's article in the 1930's where he described the symptoms)...so it "blamed" the parents...I had a physician collegue whose child was put in foster care when the diagnosis was made...so often doctors would call retarded autistic kids "retarded", and the rare high functioning ones were labled "childhood schizophrenia"...

The real argument is if the mild "live" vaccine virus changes to cause a slow encephalitis...you see, measles encephalitis and mumps encepalitis caused this type of syndrome, and rubella in pregnant women often caused retardation with autistic symptoms.

Finally, the "increase" in the diagnosis is also because "autistic" children are no longer placed in institutions, but kept at home with parents. So we see more, where as in the 1950's, they were institutionalized, and often (in the days before antibiotics and feeding tubes) died quickly...

Did you read the whole article?

Have you read anything but this one article? Try this one below.

Thimerosal containing vaccines and autism

~~~National Autism Association Questions IOM and CDC Cover-Up

-- How Far Will They go to Protect Toxic Vaccines?

Riddled With Conflicts of Interest, Institute of Medicine Releases Report Derived From Flawed Data, Says National Autism Association

WASHINGTON, May 18 /PRNewswire/ -- A report released today has parents and researchers shocked at how far the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) will go to protect the reputation of the vaccination program. After CDC-funded hearings were held in front of an IOM panel on February 9th regarding the connection between vaccines and autism, IOM released its decision today by stating there is no connection, despite strong clinical evidence from accredited doctors and researchers that suggests otherwise.

To reach their decision, the IOM relied heavily upon CDC's Vaccine Safety Database (VSD) study published in the Journal of Pediatrics in November, 2003. Many critics have come forward questioning its validity. The study's author, Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, works for a leading vaccine manufacturer. He also authored the first CDC VSD study in 2000, obtained through FOIA, which found a statistically significant link between thimerosal containing vaccines and autism, but the study was not released to the public.

The National Autism Association (NAA), supporting families and physicians looking for effective treatments for autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, says the report proves the IOM has not been able to divest itself from vaccine policies. And tragically, in doing so, they have failed society by their blindness to the issue at hand. "It appears the IOM's admitted fear of an undermined vaccination program has led to this decision, not scientific evidence," says Lori McIlwain, Executive Director of the National Autism Association.

NAA states they are for safe vaccines and stand by the clinical evidence that was presented to the IOM from highly accredited researchers, along with medical records of affected children. "Thousands of parents have seen the regression of skills in their children following thimerosal-containing vaccines," says Jo Pike, President of the National Autism Association. "Many of these same children are progressing rapidly with biomedical interventions addressing mercury poisoning. The cause and effect should not be ignored," she says.

In their report, the IOM panel dismissed strong clinical and epidemiological evidence presented during the hearings. These studies include:

- Dr. Mark Geier and David Geier presented epidemiological evidence that children who received thimerosal-containing vaccines were six times more likely to have autism than children who did not.

- Mady Hornig, MD, showed mice that had been given thimerosal-containing vaccines and subsequently developed harmful repetitive behaviors similar to those of autism. - David Baskin, MD, showed the neurotoxic affects of ethyl mercury and how such damage can lead to apoptosis of cells.

- Jeff Bradstreet, MD, showed that autistic children had six times more mercury in their bodies than age and vaccine-matched controls.

- Boyd Haley showed that autistic children have less mercury in their hair than controls, hypothesizing that autistic children can not detoxify as easily as regular children.

"The IOM took over 10 years to acknowledge Gulf War Syndrome and over 20 years to acknowledge Agent Orange poisoning," says Laura Bono, NAA Chairman. "We are asking the IOM to affirm the mass poisoning of thousands of children through mercury in their vaccines. We are confident that the truth will eventually come out and we will not be deterred until it does."

For more information, visit
http://www.NationalAutism.org .

Contact: Lori McIlwain, (919) 468-6455
Laura Bono (919) 403-9443

SOURCE National Autism Association Web Site:
http://www.nationalautism.org

There is plenty of work done in Europe and elsewhere that's not beholden to the CDC or IOM. This article's abstract states that thimerosal will be eliminated or reduced to a fraction of its former concentration in vaccines. If the association between thimerosal and autism is real, then there should be a significant decrease in the incidence of autism in the future.

BTW, when I post articles from general circulation newspapers on health and science, I'm not posting pro or con, just for what it's worth because it's interesting.

The links should work. I invite you to explore the PubMed website if you have never used it before. Limit to articles with abstracts. You may want to try the following if you never tried it before:

thimerosal AND vaccine AND autism

(thimerosal OR vaccine) AND autism

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1: Bull Acad Natl Med. 2003;187(8):1501-10. Related Articles,Links: [In Process Citation]

[Article in French]

Hessel L.

Aventis Pasteur MSD. 8, rue Jones Salk-69367 Lyon.

Thiomersal, also called thimerosal, is an ethyl mercury derivative used as a preservative to prevent bacterial contamination of multidose vaccine vials after they have been opened. Exposure to low doses of thiomersal has essentially been associated with hypersensitivity reactions. Nevertheless there is no evidence that allergy to thiomersal could be induced by thiomersal-containing vaccines. Allergy to thiomersal is usually of delayed-hypersensitivity type, but its detection through cutaneous tests is not very reliable. Hypersensitivity to thiomersal is not considered as a contraindication to the use of thiomersal-containing vaccines. In 1999 in the USA, thiomersal was present in approximately 30 different childhood vaccines, whereas there were only 2 in France. Although there were no evidence of neurological toxicity in infants related to the use of thiomersal-containing vaccines, the FDA considered that the cumulative dose of mercury received by young infants following vaccination was high enough (although lower than the FDA threshold for methyl mercury) to request vaccine manufacturers to remove thiomersal from vaccine formulations. Since 2002, all childhood vaccines used in Europe and the USA are thiomersal-free or contain only minute amounts of thiomersal. Recently published studies have shown that the mercury levels in the blood, faeces and urine of children who had received thiomersal-containing vaccines were much lower than those accepted by the American Environmental Protection Agency. It has also been demonstrated that the elimination of mercury in children was much faster than what was expected on the basis of studies conducted with methyl mercury originating from food. Recently, the hypothesis that mercury contained in vaccines could be the cause of autism and other neurological developmental disorders created a new debate in the medical community and the general public. To date, none of the epidemiological studies conducted in Europe and elsewhere support this assumption. Although any effort should be made to avoid useless exposure of vaccinees to a potentially toxic compound, it should be emphasized that 1) public communication on this issue has led to a decrease in the hepatitis B vaccination coverage of children born to HBs Ag positive mothers in the US; 2) this issue was not really relevant in France where until 2002, apart from two hepatitis B vaccines, all childhood vaccines were thiomersal-free, and 3) in developing countries using multidose vaccine vials, moving to thiomersal-free vaccines in unidose presentations would represent such an incremental cost that millions of children would no more have access to vaccination. Therefore the World Health Organisation still recommends the use of thiomersal-containing vaccines as part of the expanded programme of immunisation.

PMID: 15146581 [PubMed - in process]

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Melanie Phillips's Articles

February 23, 2004

The smearing of Andrew Wakefield