Report Alleges Money Motivated Doctor Behind Autism-Vaccine Scare

I am vaguely acquainted with the vaccine/autism ties from some casual reading here on ATS, and just saw this article pop up in a news search... This article seems to present the whole deal as a money making scam, but could there be something else going on here?

businessweek.com

The disgraced doctor who published a study more than 10 years ago claiming that a common childhood vaccine -- the measles-mumps-rubella inoculation -- causes autism may have been motivated more by money than conviction, investigators say.

According to the second in a three-part investigative series in the medical journal BMJ, Dr. Andrew Wakefield was retained by a lawyer seeking to extract money from vaccine manufacturers as his research was just beginning. He also allegedly applied for a patent for an alternative vaccine, set up a business to profit from that vaccine as well as diagnostic kits and other products, and worked with the Royal Free Medical School in London on these business ventures.

Can anyone confirm or deny the accusations presented in this article?

Originally posted by JacKatMtn
I am vaguely acquainted with the vaccine/autism ties from some casual reading here on ATS, and just saw this article pop up in a news search... This article seems to present the whole deal as a money making scam, but could there be something else going on here?

businessweek.com

The disgraced doctor who published a study more than 10 years ago claiming that a common childhood vaccine -- the measles-mumps-rubella inoculation -- causes autism may have been motivated more by money than conviction, investigators say.

According to the second in a three-part investigative series in the medical journal BMJ, Dr. Andrew Wakefield was retained by a lawyer seeking to extract money from vaccine manufacturers as his research was just beginning. He also allegedly applied for a patent for an alternative vaccine, set up a business to profit from that vaccine as well as diagnostic kits and other products, and worked with the Royal Free Medical School in London on these business ventures.

Can anyone confirm or deny the accusations presented in this article?

So Wakefield wants to patent a vaccine he feels is safer than the mainstream vaccine (which I'm guessing does not contain thimerosal) and this is unethical why?

I can't affirm or deny the claims, I'm just confused as to what exactly is unethical about the claims. Not to mention wakefield had a smear campaign against him that twisted his words around

www.cnn.com...
Saying his work was "grossly distorted" so why should I believe this is anything but yet another smear against Wakefield so the vaccine companies can make more money, and now they are claiming a lone researcher has more greed than a vaccine corporation. Sorry not buying it.

reply to post by JacKatMtn


The accusations have been confirmed. Wakefield is a scam artist and fraud of the worst sort. It all started with a paper he did resulting from a 1998 study. The paper was published in the British medical journal, Lancet. That study has been retracted by 10 of Wakefield’s co-authors and The Lancet has called it “dishonest” and “irresponsible.” See, blogs.webmd.com... . That triggered an investigation by the General Medical Council in Britain. Wakefield was found guilty of serious professional misconduct over “unethical” research that sparked unfounded fears that the vaccine was linked to bowel disease and autism. He was then struck off the medical register, which is apparently like having his license to practice medicine revoked. See, www.timesonline.co.uk... . According to the GMC, Dr Wakefield, 53, also “showed a callous disregard” for the suffering of children by taking blood samples from them at his son’s birthday party, and failed to declare a conflict of interest — that he had received £50,000 to carry out research on behalf of parents who suspected that MMR could lead to autism. Wakefield now lives in America, providing venal antivaxxers like Jenny McCarthy and her sometimes boyfriend Jim Carrey with fraudulent evidence to use in their campaigns against vaccines. To see the awful effect of their campaign, see the Jenny McCarthy Body count page at www.jennymccarthybodycount.com...

On this I am septic also. I have read many articles where children were diagnosed with autism after the vaccine. These findings had nothing to do with Dr. Andrew Wakefield. So my question is when was the payoff?

Originally posted by Socio
On this I am septic also. I have read many articles where children were diagnosed with autism after the vaccine. These findings had nothing to do with Dr. Andrew Wakefield. So my question is when was the payoff?

If you're septic you need an antibiotic, not a vaccine. Sorry, I think I know what you meant to type, but you just made it so easy. And Wakefield was paid off by the lawyers trying to sue the vaccine makers. And the lawyers scammed the money out of a Legal Aid Trust. Richard Barr, the lawyer handling the MMR vaccine litigation, admitted in an interview how he paid. Audio at briandeer.com... . "The payments, unearthed by The Sunday Times, were part of £3.4m distributed from the legal aid fund to doctors and scientists who had been recruited to support a now failed lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers." briandeer.com... . Wakefield got more than GBP 400,000, which is about $631,000.00.

Originally posted by filosophia

So Wakefield wants to patent a vaccine he feels is safer than the mainstream vaccine (which I'm guessing does not contain thimerosal) and this is unethical why?

You don't see anything unethical about performing research that falsely connects a competitor's product to a horrible condition while holding the patent to a "safer alternative"?

Really?

reply to post by 4nsicphd

Haha yeah you got the point I was throwing, thanks for the clarification. Sometimes my brain gets ahead of my typing. I really ought to re read before I hit send.

reply to post by Socio


If you are still interested, there is a new detailed, documented and well sourced investigative report on the Wakefield/JABS/Barr fraud. It's at www.bmj.com...

What troubles me in this, is the fact that this has been a respected study over 10 years old, and now this has been found out?

Could this be just character assassination? Like I said earlier I am not deeply familiar with the whole chain of events here, just asking a question from a casual observer's point of view...

There seems to be some new evidence in this story...

Documents emerge proving Dr Andrew Wakefield innocent; BMJ and Brian Deer caught misrepresenting the facts

New documents have emerged that clear Dr Andrew Wakefield of the allegations of fraud recently made by the British Medical Journal and its reporter Brian Deer. This new evidence "completely negates the allegations that I committed scientific
fraud. Brian Deer and Dr. Godlee of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) knew or should
have known about the facts set out below before publishing their false allegations," says Dr Andrew Wakefield (see sources, below).

I don't think this one is over, is Wakefield a scam artist? or is Big Pharma behind an effort to discredit the findings?

Who has more to lose? Is this about the welfare of the folks, or the money?

Maybe you guys should listen to the man himself?
If you actually look at both sides of the story it's blatantly obvious that someone's just trying to make an example out of him.

Interview from yesterday...

Originally posted by JacKatMtn
What troubles me in this, is the fact that this has been a respected study over 10 years old, and now this has been found out?

Could this be just character assassination? Like I said earlier I am not deeply familiar with the whole chain of events here, just asking a question from a casual observer's point of view...

It was never a "respected study". Almost as soon as it was published, the power and statistical methods of the study were called into question (keep in mind, the population used in the study was just TWELVE PEOPLE, while most studies use hundreds, if not thousands). The study was put on tentative investigation for a number of years, then pulled from the publication record a few years ago, and this is just the latest news of that investigation. It takes time to look into something like this, as the fraud ran so deeply.

Originally posted by JacKatMtn
I don't think this one is over, is Wakefield a scam artist? or is Big Pharma behind an effort to discredit the findings?

Even if the guy was found out to be selling organs on the black market or robbing banks in his spare time laying all the blame on him for parents being scared to vaccinate is ridiculous imo. Years before Wakefield's study there were already fears that MMR may cause autism and it certainly is not his fault that the news reports scary stories of children reacting to flu and HPV vaccines. They seem to have "forgotten" alot of their own front pages which would only make parents more suspicious.

I have no opinion on the validity of Wakefield's studies since I have not read them and do not have a medical or statistical degree. I have been concerned about studies done by vaccine manufacturers themselves as well as the CDC. It appears that their data had to be taken through several revisions in order to come up with "no harm" as the conclusion.

www.thinktwice.com...

A review of these documents leaves me very concerned that rather than seeking to understand whether or not some children were exposed to harmful levels of mercury in childhood vaccines in the 1990s, there may have been a selective use of the data to make the associations in the earliest study disappear. While most childhood vaccines now only have trace amounts of mercury from thimerosal containing vaccines (TCVs), it is critical that we know with certainty if children were injured in the 1990s.

Furthermore, the lead author of the article, Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, worked for the CDC until he left over two years ago to work in Belgium for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a vaccine manufacturer facing liability over TCVs. In violation of their own standards of conduct, Pediatrics failed to disclose that Dr. Verstraeten is employed by GSK and incorrectly identifies him as an employee of the CDC. This revelation undermines this study further.

My son has autism, but his is certainly genetic. We have "autistic traits" and Aspergers on both sides of the family. I do ask for the thimerisol free flu vaccination as I don't see how pumping a child full of ethyl mercury could be good for them. BTW, my son is fully vaccinated except for the swine flu last year - his neurologist said not to give him that vaccine. I actually question the entire vaccination load given to kids now. I find it telling that no CDC study compares autism rates of the general population with autism rates of unvaccinated populations. They are out there - the Amish, Mennonites & a Chicago pediatric practice all could serve as the control group. What's the CDC scared of?

Another interesting fact is that, 40 years ago when my dad (a psychologist then) worked with autistic children, you had 4 birth-onset cases to each regression case. Regression is when the child develops normally for a time then regresses into autism. Today that is reversed with the majority of cases being regressive autism. Something is going on, and I don't trust the CDC to tell us.

Originally posted by Mountainmeg
I find it telling that no CDC study compares autism rates of the general population with autism rates of unvaccinated populations. They are out there - the Amish, Mennonites & a Chicago pediatric practice all could serve as the control group. What's the CDC scared of?

Amish, by and large, vaccinate their children
CDC study on impact of undercoverage of DTaP in some Amish populations
Amish are not opposed to vaccines

Just because you claim no one has done research on a given topic doesn't make it so. This was just a quick, cursory search for Amish and vaccine information. While they have a slightly lower rate of vaccination than the general public, they do not eschew vaccines as a whole, with 84% of surveyed Amish families vaccinating their children.

Additionally, even with the lower rate of vaccination, the Amish have a rate of autism diagnosis that mirrors the general population.

Amish autism rate is 1 in 271

Another interesting fact is that, 40 years ago when my dad (a psychologist then) worked with autistic children, you had 4 birth-onset cases to each regression case. Regression is when the child develops normally for a time then regresses into autism. Today that is reversed with the majority of cases being regressive autism. Something is going on, and I don't trust the CDC to tell us.

You realize that there have been leaps and bounds made in diagnosis, both of physical and psychiatric disorders, in the last 40 years, yes? Trying to compare disorder classification and diagnosis in the 1970s to today is being just a tad dishonest. What you're doing is akin to comparing the velocity of a plane from the 1970s to a fighter jet today, and then claiming that the difference in speed is because something has changed in the air, as the planes MUST be the same.

worth the read...

Here's some of what you'll find in this eye-opening report from the International Medical Council on Vaccination
www.VaccinationCouncil.org

* A list of the many MDs, PhDs, NDs and other medical professionals who are signing onto this document.
* Why vaccines have NEVER been proven safe or effective.
* A list of some of the serious health side effects caused by vaccines.
* Why autism is associated with vaccines.
* The profit motivation behind the pharmaceutical industry's big vaccine push.
* A list of which institutions and organizations profit from your sickness.
* The shocking truth about what's IN vaccines (aborted fetal tissue, 59 different chemicals, DNA from diseased animals and more)
* An overview of some of the most dangerous vaccine ingredients
* The truth about conflicts of interest in the vaccine community and why doctors profit from vaccination policies
* Why vaccinated children have far worse health outcomes than unvaccinated children
* How to opt out of "mandatory" vaccines.
* Important advice for parents about how to protect the health of your children while saying NO to vaccines
* Online resources for learning more about the dangers of vaccines
* A list of recommended reading materials for further education

reply to post by alaskan


Wow...not a single item on that list is true. I'm not going to take the time to explain each one, but will be mor than happy to post research and explanations for any that people are more interested in.

i heard with own ears of the mouths of high-up affiliates who oversee the covert work of vaccination ie:poisoning of the public... they themselves refuse to take it, for even a standing $75,000 offer that has existed for many years now.. the vaccines of current, and of decades now are directly responsible for all modern syndromes, diseases and cancers of today... it is sinister but viewed as a necessary means as a result of significant brainwashing by the master upon top of pyramid.. the people i speak are at middle of top pyramid status...

reply to post by DarkRedSoda


If vaccines are responsible for "all modern syndromes", please explain why these syndromes existed prior to vaccinations.

Originally posted by VneZonyDostupa
You realize that there have been leaps and bounds made in diagnosis, both of physical and psychiatric disorders, in the last 40 years, yes? Trying to compare disorder classification and diagnosis in the 1970s to today is being just a tad dishonest. What you're doing is akin to comparing the velocity of a plane from the 1970s to a fighter jet today, and then claiming that the difference in speed is because something has changed in the air, as the planes MUST be the same.

Yep, there sure have been changes. The scope of what constitutes "autism" has been broadened. Doctors have been better trained. Parents are better informed and more aware of the symptoms. The last study I read that looked at if the increased rise in autism was because of this was about 2 years ago. At that time, the changes accounted for about 60-70% of the increase, leaving 30-40% unexplained. It's still a heck of a lot.

I'm glad to see that the Amish are being looked at. 1 in 271 is still better than the general population.