After Wakefield: the real questions that need addressing

[HuckleB]

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/bmj.c2829?

"Have medical journals and hospital ethics committees yet got their act together?

In February 2004 I got a call on my mobile from a journalist at the Sunday Times saying he wanted to talk to me about the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine and autism. I said firmly that I didn’t have any concerns about MMR, I didn’t want to assist a scare story, and if I did want to talk about public health it wouldn’t be to the Sunday Times, given the paper’s record on HIV and AIDS coverage. "Too bad," said the man. "I have an exclusive exposé about Andrew Wakefield’s undeclared conflicts of interest surrounding his original 1998 Lancet paper." "Hang on a sec," I said. "I’ll get Dr Harris on the line."

That was when I first encountered investigative journalist Brian Deer. Within a week we were in the Lancet offices explaining to a stunned editorial team what lay behind that fateful 1998 paper.1

Brian Deer had discovered that Andrew Wakefield was being paid by the legal aid board to provide an expert opinion for plaintiff lawyers in a legal suit against the manufacturers of MMR, and that at least some of the children who were claimed to be "consecutive patients referred to the paediatric GI clinic at the Royal Free" were part of the class action.2 Deer also had a freedom of information response from the research ethics committee of the Royal Free Hospital showing the applications and related correspondence (http://briandeer.com/mmr/royal-table.htm) for ethical approval of the Lancet study. My experience on a local research ethics committee, and on the BMA’s medical ethics committee, helped me recognise that of more concern than financial non-declaration and double payment (www.gmc-uk.org/Wakefield_SPM_and_SANCTION.pdf_32595267.pdf) was the grossly unethical nature of the research and the inadequacies of the ethical oversight, and these issues were what I discussed first in my subsequent meetings with the General Medical Council. When the GMC published its findings of fact3 against the researchers, which amounted to serious professional misconduct,4 the most frequent and most serious related to the ethical propriety of what was done to the children.

This week the GMC struck Dr Wakefield off the medical register, but this result cannot bring an end to the matter. A number of key questions are raised by the scandal, and there is no certainty that this case was isolated or unrepeatable.

..."


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Absolutely. This question must be raised in the US, and in the rest of the world, as well.

I mean, we're now looking at yet another paper that fails to address much previous research in its assumptions, while looking at select research from less than stellar publications, including a paper by Mr. Wakefield.

See: http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/06/urine-test-for-autism-hmmm/ for more on that.

Oh, :hi:!

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[GoneOffShore]

2. And yet Mr Wakefield plunges continues to garner fans.

Is there no end to the stupid?

[Odin2005]

3. Apparently this fucker has a new book out.

I ran into it at Barnes & Nobel at one of the New Books tables. :puke:

[HuckleB]

4. Luckily, the headline on that is: Andrew Wakefield – as succesful an author as researcher

"Andrew Wakefields supporters were hoping his new book would be a bestseller. That ain’t going to happen given how much a publishing insider revealed to me how many he has actually sold:

"He sold a total of 1017 copies. Top sales 157 copies in NYC. 46 in LA, 43 in Atlanta (perhaps CDC people wanted to see what he said?!), 38 in Boston, 24 in Chicago, 18 in Seatlle and 17 copies in his hometown of Austin"

Ouch. It’ll be interesting to see how well the book does as interest in it fades. Or maybe ‘well’ isn’t the right word."


Read more: http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/06/andrew-wakefield-as-succesful-an-author-as-researcher/#ixzz0pzgKG3TO

[uppityperson]

5. kick