Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Bad Medicine Based On Junk Science.




In 1998 Lancet published an article by Dr. Andrew Wakefield which linked the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism.  Today Lancet retracted that article in its entirety.
The medical journal The Lancet on Tuesday retracted a controversial 1998 paper that linked the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism.

The study subsequently had been discredited, and last week, the lead author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, was found to have acted unethically in conducting the research.

The General Medical Council, which oversees doctors in Britain, said that "there was a biased selection of patients in The Lancet paper" and that his "conduct in this regard was dishonest and irresponsible."

The panel found that Wakefield subjected some children in the study to various invasive medical procedures such as colonoscopies and MRI scans. He also paid children at his son's birthday party to have blood drawn for research purposes, an act that "showed a callous disregard" for the "distress and pain" of the children, the panel said.

After the council's findings last week, The Lancet retracted the study and released this statement.

"It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al. are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were 'consecutively referred' and that investigations were 'approved' by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record."
The retraction of a previously published paper is practically unheard of. It just isn't done, doesn't happen, and such an uncommon occurrence, that it is the medical equivalent of Hell Freezing Over.

For over a decade Hollywood starlet floozy Jenny McCarthy, has convinced the stupid, the gullible, the lame-brained parents of the world not to vaccinate their children.  And a good percentage of them did so.  So many listened to her that there have been major outbreaks of all three diseases.  So much for bimbos out of Hollywood.
Generation Rescue, an advocacy and support group founded by actress Jenny McCarthy, whose son has autism, expressed support for Wakefield. A co-founder of the group, JB Handley, called him "a courageous honest doctor who told an inconvenient truth." McCarthy is a high-profile proponent of the belief that childhood vaccinations may play a part in the condition.

Generation Rescue criticized the General Medical Council's judgment on Wakefield with this statement: "The sole purpose of the GMC's ruling this week is to try and quell the growing concern of parents that the expanding vaccine schedule and the remarkable rise in autism are correlated."

It also advised parents to do their own research before deciding to give their child the MMR vaccine.

Cases in which U.S. families have sued alleging a vaccine-autism link have had mixed outcomes.

In 2007, a U.S. federal program intended to compensate victims of injuries caused by vaccines concluded that a 9-year-old girl's underlying illness had predisposed her to symptoms of autism and was "significantly aggravated" by the vaccinations.

Two years later, three American families sought compensation from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, but the panel ruled that they had not presented sufficient evidence to prove that the vaccines caused autism in their children.
Why is it that a whore and bimbo like Jenny McCarthy says that vaccines cause autism the people of the world listen, but when  reputable scientists publish studies based on scientific methods and authentic research, they are ignored?

Jenny McCarthy should now get in touch with Dr. Faten Abdel-Rahman Khorshid, another purveyor of Snake Oil.  Between the 2 of them who knows how many children they can further harm?

1 comment:

Maggie Thornton said...

There is money to follow somewhere. It would interesting to know if she has been paid for anything she has done with autism.