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Post by mrsonde on Aug 21, 2018 16:41:07 GMT 1
Appalled to see this morning the increasingly atrocious Guardian and, more understandably (because it started the endorsement of the Establishment witchhunt and can't afford to backtrack and apologise now) that the slanders against Andrew Wakefield are being repeated. He is once again described as "disgraced" and accused of having committed "fraud". He was certainly "disgraced", though entirely unjustly, but no fraud was ever committed, or shown to have been committed.
Is there anyone on this board who still believes there is no link betwen MMR and autism - the real "epidemic" in the world (everywhere they use MMR, at any rate.) It's a real epidemic, a literally exponential one, that has condemned millions of children to entirely iatrogenic lifelong brain damage of the most heartbreaking kind.
In case there is, let me apprise them of a few crucial facts. Wakefield committed no fraud - all he did was point out - in a peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal - there was a correlation suggested in his research (not into MMR at all, incidentally) between the multiple vaccine and autism, and that further study was required to confirm that correlation. He did so because dozens of parents of children with autism with various gastric dysfunctions had told him that the autsm first manifested immediately after receiving the vaccine, and this incidence was statistically significant, even though his sample was too small to draw a definitive conclusion about the matter. For this - doing his duty as a scientist, and a doctor - he was crucified by the mainstream press, struck off, forced to emigate, vilified even further in the States, and spent years in court trying to clear his name.
We now know, thanks to the head scientist who conducted the research into the efficacy and safety of the vaccine at the CDC (the lead medical research centre of the US Government, and hence of the world) turning whistleblower, that the CDC, and the NIH, and Merck, the makers of the vaccine, knew all about this correlation, and it was a great deal stronger than Wakefield's sample suggested. The only fraud committed in this affair was by the CDC, who changed the protocol of their study in order to conceal this finding. The executive doctor making this decision then lied to a Congressional hearing into the safety of the vaccine, thus concealing it further, paving the way for the vaccine's compulsory use throughout the USA. This woman is now a senior director of Merck.
The British government know this, of course, as does anyone else who has kept up an interest in the scandal. They are still repeating the lie that there is no known link; they are still insisting as in the States that doctors administer the vaccine to every child in Britain; and they are still banning the import of the perfectly safe and simple alternative, separate vaccines rather than a combined one. Sooner or later, I believe this will bring the Government of the day down - both parties are culpable in this. The legal liabilities are enormous - many trillions in the States, many billions here*. When that happens Wakefield will be acknowledged as a hero - both for his original discovery, and the cruel martyrdom at the hands of the Pharma-Medical-Corporate Media-Govt. Establishment nexus, and because he's worked tirelessly to bring all the truth of this health scandal - by far the biggest in history - finally into the open.
Inciodentally, as an aside, this is one of those instances where racial genetic differences play an important part. The CDC study, so fraudulently covered up, showed that African-Americans in particular are most at risk from MMR: they're between seven and eight times more likely to be given autism by the vaccine** - twice the likelihood of Caucasions, and a third again more than Native Americans.
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Post by mrsonde on Aug 21, 2018 20:00:49 GMT 1
* You might be surprised - horrified would be appropriate - to learn that drug companies have no requirement to demonstrate that vaccines do not produce harmful effects. And, even more astonishing - if it is ever shown that they are harmful, they have no liability! Even if, as they do, they knew it was harmful!
** The risk, as shown by the CDC's study data, is about 150:1. That is, when you allow your child to be given the MMR vaccine, you're betting that it won't give your child lifelong brain damage (and digestive, kidney, and a host of other permanent ailments) with odds of 150 to 1. Every doctor has more patients than this! Over time, he or she will give a certain number of children autism - and this isn't mild aspergers: it's severe headbanging isolating autism, requiring lifelong care and ancillary support.
I'm not sure they're entirely innocent in this horrifying scandal either. They're the ones giving assurances to worried parents, saying to their faces: science has shown this vaccine is perfectly safe, and has no connection to autism whatsoever. In law, the cliche is{ ignorance is no excuse; and that's just for the average clueless man in the street. These are highly-paid highly-trained supposed experts, with immense state-awarded power, who, I think, have a duty to learn whatever is known about whatever drug they're persuading - forcing, in this case - their patients to take. As for the Government, and the media that does its bidding, and the pharma companies - it's incomprehensible. The only explanation...filthy moolah. At what a cost.
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Post by alancalverd on Aug 22, 2018 7:48:37 GMT 1
Nobody with any credibility has ever claimed that a vaccine is "perfectly safe". It can't be. Vaccines are developed and used on a balance of risk. A proven 1:150 is not acceptable if the "equivalent fatality rate" for a nonvaccinated population is less. Problem is determining the EFR if the alleged side-effects are delayed or difficult to diagnose.
Whilst the US FDA has some restraining power that is not available in Europe, in particular the requirement to demonstrate that a new product is substantially better than what is already on the market, its credibility is slightly flawed by being financed by industry rather than the taxpayer. Interesting conundrum: industry finances the FDA to protect the consumer, whilst the EMA is financed by the taxpayer to protect the producer!
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Post by jonjel on Aug 22, 2018 14:03:13 GMT 1
Hmmm. Tell me more please. I have an autistic grandson
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Post by alancalverd on Aug 22, 2018 18:34:02 GMT 1
Beware of bandwaggons, whichever direction they are rolling.
There are huge problems associated with comparative medical statistics, even where the diagnosis is supposedly unequivocal. It turns out that the very low rate of fatal heart disease in France is due to a sociological reluctance in that country to record it on a death certificate if there are any possible co-morbidities. The sudden increase in childhood asthma diagnoses in the 1990s coincided remarkably with the powerful marketing of robust plastic nebulisers in pretty colors. Epidemiological studies of any association or anticorrelation with mass vaccination necessarily use tainted data.
Autism having been replaced with "autistic spectrum disorder", it is now possible for a psychiatrist to diagnose any child (except his own, who is "artistic" or "quiet") as being on the autism spectrum, and pocket a fee for doing so.
There is a strong correlation between eating quiche and having dyslexic children. People who call it egg and bacon pie have "thick kids".
I had some sympathy for Wakefield and indeed for anyone who honestly publishes an unopopular finding, but as time goes on I am less convinced by his very smallscale and uncontrolled study. Time to read it again, perhaps.
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Post by aquacultured on Aug 23, 2018 0:57:07 GMT 1
mrsonde has slipped in on the non-scientific sub-board a supposedly scientific thesis that could dissuade parents from getting their children vaccinated in the most efficacious fashion, not just for them but for the whole population.
I wish he hadn't done it. I know there are few board members, but people do read stuff here, and pass it on.
Shame.
PS. And I'm concerned if jonjel has been unduly worried.
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Post by jean on Aug 23, 2018 13:43:13 GMT 1
Nobody with any credibility has ever claimed that a vaccine is "perfectly safe". It can't be. Vaccines are developed and used on a balance of risk. A proven 1:150 is not acceptable if the "equivalent fatality rate" for a nonvaccinated population is less. Problem is determining the EFR if the alleged side-effects are delayed or difficult to diagnose. Plenty of side effects, more or less serious, more or less widespread. A friend developed narcolepsy as a result of a Swine 'Flu vaccination. Who knows how many died while the smallpox vaccine, the first, was being developed and tested? The collateral damage was thought worthwhile because it contributed to the eradication of a truly terrible disease. The aim to balance the perceived need to make the procedure as risk-free as possible for the individual and the undoubted good vaccination will bring to a whole community if a high enough proportion are vaccinated will always be there. The ideal situation for the individual, of course, is for everyone else to get vaccinated, so they don’t have to. But in spite of these caveats, it does appear that Wakefield's reaearch was flawed - and shown to be so by an investigative journalist rather than 'the establishment', whether mediacal or pharmacological.More about MMR/autism here.
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Post by jonjel on Aug 23, 2018 16:38:43 GMT 1
PS. And I'm concerned if jonjel has been unduly worried. No, I am not unduly worried. My grandson is now 11, and I have suspected something was 'not quite right' since he was perhaps 2. Many parents cry 'my child is autistic' when in reality they just have a badly behaved child, (which is pretty normal for ALL children), that they just can't control. I won't give you a litany of behavioural traits with my lad, but they do without question affect his life, and will probably do so for the rest of his life. And it makes me very sad. I used to sometimes pick him up from nursery when he was 3 or 4, and as most would, I would peep though the widow. All the children were haply playing together, bar one, who was more often than not sat on his own. Result is, no friends bar one, no invitations to parties- the list is endless. I am well aware that psychiatrists rub their hands and open the till on many occasions, and I am extremely sceptical that they seem to be able to find a little box to put almost everyone in. However when the diagnosis comes back from at least six different people over the years, whether they be working privately or for the state, you have to accept what they say, even in part. We have found one sport in which he excels, and as such encouraged him as must as possible and I have bought him top class kit for that sport for birthday and Christmas presents. So far so good, he represented his school, as one of only 2 from the whole school It could be a bit of a game changer, we will see. Chris Packham is autistic, and has very similar traits. He focusses on one thing and becomes very knowledgeable about it to the point of being boring And that is the same with my lad. He talked to me once about spiders, and he knew more about spiders than I thought there was to know. And if you tried to change the conversation, it was back to spiders for several hours. So, autistic people are not unintelligent, they are just wired a bit different. Did he have the MMR vaccine? I really don't know, but if he did I very much doubt that was the cause of his condition.
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Post by alancalverd on Aug 23, 2018 17:26:00 GMT 1
I loathed nursery and had very few friends at my primary school. The other kids were inclined to be childish, shallow and prejudiced, so I didn't bother with most of them. Since I spent most of my schooldays asleep (having read the book or finished the maths exercise), drawing airplanes, or laughing at my own writing, I was sent to a psychiatrist at the age of 6. Nice guy, as I recall, who asked me to play with a couple of toy soldiers, then explain why they fought so hard. I said "because they are soldiers, like my dad. That's what they are paid to do." His recommendation was to move me up two years during the next six months, and go to an airshow. Worked like a charm. But that was in the days before autism. The one kid I got on with (when we weren't being disciplined for fighting each other or having pissing contests) collided with me some years later when he was Emeritus Reader in Hebrew at a university that Mr S may have dreamed of.
Thanks to a selective-ish state education system I went on at secondary level to make a very few good friends who later became national and international chess champions, barristers, judges, surgeons, heads of national laboratories, and an Air Commodore. I think we would all have been classed nowadays somewhere on the autistic spectrum except for the guy who became headmaster of another hothouse school.
Wired different, or just "wired" rather than amorphous lumpenconsumers? Engineers and neurologists have a lot to learn from spiderologists, and the ability to concentrate on one thing for six hours at a time (and pick up seamlessly after lunch) can win a Test Match.
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Post by aquacultured on Aug 23, 2018 23:38:04 GMT 1
PS. And I'm concerned if jonjel has been unduly worried. No, I am not unduly worried. My grandson is now 11, and I have suspected something was 'not quite right' since he was perhaps 2. Many parents cry 'my child is autistic' when in reality they just have a badly behaved child, (which is pretty normal for ALL children), that they just can't control. I won't give you a litany of behavioural traits with my lad, but they do without question affect his life, and will probably do so for the rest of his life. And it makes me very sad. I used to sometimes pick him up from nursery when he was 3 or 4, and as most would, I would peep though the widow. All the children were haply playing together, bar one, who was more often than not sat on his own. Result is, no friends bar one, no invitations to parties- the list is endless. I am well aware that psychiatrists rub their hands and open the till on many occasions, and I am extremely sceptical that they seem to be able to find a little box to put almost everyone in. However when the diagnosis comes back from at least six different people over the years, whether they be working privately or for the state, you have to accept what they say, even in part. We have found one sport in which he excels, and as such encouraged him as must as possible and I have bought him top class kit for that sport for birthday and Christmas presents. So far so good, he represented his school, as one of only 2 from the whole school It could be a bit of a game changer, we will see. Chris Packham is autistic, and has very similar traits. He focusses on one thing and becomes very knowledgeable about it to the point of being boring And that is the same with my lad. He talked to me once about spiders, and he knew more about spiders than I thought there was to know. And if you tried to change the conversation, it was back to spiders for several hours. So, autistic people are not unintelligent, they are just wired a bit different. Did he have the MMR vaccine? I really don't know, but if he did I very much doubt that was the cause of his condition. Thanks for that, jonjel. It's very much my experience with two of my seven grandkids. Doctors don't know too much very quickly and it's best to just get on with it in a loving way until they can tell you something helpful.
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Post by jean on Aug 24, 2018 1:25:13 GMT 1
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Post by nickrr on Aug 24, 2018 13:36:16 GMT 1
Wakefield deserved everything he got and more. His paper was not just wrong but fraudulent. No doubt influenced by the fact that he had a financial interest in a venture that had planned to profit from the fallout from his paper. This paper was later retracted by the journal that published it and he was rightfully struck off by his peers. Details of the whole sordid business can be seen here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield
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Post by mrsonde on Aug 24, 2018 23:55:42 GMT 1
Nobody with any credibility has ever claimed that a vaccine is "perfectly safe". It can't be. You can say the same about any drug. It's a meaningless comment. As it is. The problem is testing this effect. It hasn't been done. The only peopel to have done it were the CDC. And they falsified their results to make it seem safe. Not for vaccines. That falls to the CDC. They take their lead from the Americans - assuming, rightly enough, that their safety standards are safer than theirs. There is no such demonstration required for vaccines. The FDA has nothing to do with passing vaccines!
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Post by mrsonde on Aug 24, 2018 23:59:09 GMT 1
Hmmm. Tell me more please. I have an autistic grandson You do? My sincere...I don't know what to say that's not platitudinous. My...empathy.
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Post by mrsonde on Aug 25, 2018 0:20:16 GMT 1
Beware of bandwaggons, whichever direction they are rolling. Interesting comment! The bandwagon at the moment has suddenly taken an abrupt reverse direction. You know why that is? Why all these news stories are erupting this week? A hundred people in Europe get measles and it's an "epidemic", and it's all down to Wakefield? Or the Russians? It's because there's an avalanche of demands from Americans to their Congressman pouring out their despair and asking for an enquiry. The avalanche has been resisted so far, but the weight of the fallout, in terms of the exponential growth in autism victims, is growing too heavy. It's going to give. Certainly. There's no equivocation about full-blown autism, suddenly manifesting. No, it doesn't turn out. The asthma epidemic is something else - not unconnected with this subject by any means, but let's not get distracted at this early stage of the discussion. I'd just say that to suggest toddlers fake asthma symptoms because they like colourful gadgets is preposterous. The worst night of my life was I think waiting in a hospital for my four yr-old nephew to come out of a near-fatal asthma attack. When I was a kid asthma was virtually unknown - I never encountered it. Same with autism. Now it's several kids in every class. What we're talking about is the CDC's study of all available data. Yes, yeessss. Exactly. Hmm. Yes, I sort of agree with the general point. But I'd say this is being used to obfuscate a real issue. We're talking about kids who suddenly can no longer speak or hold interactive contact with their parents. Who rock back and forth for hours on end. Who are in constant pain. You read it again! It wasn't a study into MMR! He made a virtually footnote comment, right at the end of his paper, about the statistically significant reports made to him in the autistic patients he was studying! An entirely unobjectionable comment! One that he had an absolute duty to report! As a scientist, a doctor, and a human being.
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