Wakefield was smeared to suppress the findings of his most recent, ongoing experiment.

[mhatrw]

http://fedgeno.com/documents/delayed-neonatal-reflexes-in-primates-receiving-thimerosal.pdf

Abstract

This study examined whether acquisition of neonatal reflexes and sensorimotor skills in newborn rhesus
macaques (Macaca mulatta) is influenced by receipt of the single neonatal dose of Hepatitis B (HB)
vaccine containing the preservative thimerosal (Th). HB vaccine containing a standardized weightadjusted
Th dose was administered to male macaques within 24 h of birth (n = 13). Unexposed animals
received saline placebo (n = 4) or no injection (n = 3). Infants were raised identically and tested daily for
acquisition of 9 survival, motor, and sensorimotor reflexes by a blinded observer. In exposed animals
there was a significant delay in the acquisition of three survival reflexes: root, snout and suck, compared
with unexposed animals. No neonatal responses were significantly delayed in unexposed animals
compared with exposed. Gestational age (GA) and birth weight were not significantly correlated. Cox
regression models were used to evaluate the main effects and interactions of exposure with birth weight
and GA as independent predictors and time-invariant covariates. Significant main effects remained for
exposure on root and suck when controlling for GA and birth weight such that exposed animals were
relatively delayed in time-to-criterion. There was a significant effect of GA on visual follow far when
controlling for exposure such that increasing GA was associated with shorter time-to-criterion.
Interactionmodels indicated that while there were no main effects of GA or birth weight on root, suck or
snout reflexes there were various interactions between exposure, GA, and birth weight such that
inclusion of the relevant interaction terms significantly improved model fit. This, in turn, indicated
important influences of birth weight and/or GA on the effect of exposure which, in general, operated in a
way that lower birth weight and/or lower GA exacerbated the detrimental effect of vaccine exposure.
This primate model provides a possiblemeans of assessing adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes from
neonatal Th-containing HB vaccine exposure, particularly in infants of lower GA or low birth weight. The
mechanism of these effects and the requirements for Th is not known and requires further study.

Read about the initial results of this unique study http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/09/blockbuster-primate-study-shows-significant-harm-from-one-birth-dose-of-a-mercurycontaining-vaccine.html">here.

Read about the unconscionable suppression of this critically needed study http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/03/joan-cranmers-fateful-decisions-and-the-suppression-of-autism-science.html">here.

Here is a very prescient http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=315918085947&topic=14844">open letter from 11 months ago on the motivations behind the Wakefield Witch Hunt.

For the past decade, parents in our community have been clamoring for a relatively simple scientific study that could settle the debate over the possible role of vaccines in the autism epidemic once and for all: compare children who have been vaccinated with children who have never received any vaccines and see if the rate of autism is different or the same. Few people are aware that this extremely important work has not only begun, but that a study using an animal model has already been completed exploring this topic in great detail.

Dr. Wakefield is the co-author, along with eight other distinguished scientists from institutions like the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Washington, of a set of studies that explore the topic of vaccinated versus unvaccinated neurological outcomes using monkeys.

The first phase of this monkey study was published three months ago in the prestigious medical journal Neurotoxicology, and focused on the first two weeks of life when the vaccinated monkeys received a single vaccine for Hepatitis B, mimicking the U.S. vaccine schedule. The results, which you can read for yourself HERE, were disturbing. Vaccinated monkeys, unlike their unvaccinated peers, suffered the loss of many reflexes that are critical for survival.

Dr. Wakefield and his scientific colleagues are on the brink of publishing their entire study, which followed the monkeys through the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule over a multi-year period. It is our understanding that the difference in outcome for the vaccinated monkeys versus the unvaccinated controls is both stark and devastating.

There is no question that the publication of the monkey study will lend substantial credibility to the theory that over-vaccination of young children is leading to neurological damage, including autism. The fallout from the study for vaccine makers and public health officials could be severe. Having denied the possibility of the vaccine-autism connection for so long while profiting immensely from a recent boom in vaccine sales around the world, it's no surprise that they would seek to repress this important work.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. The anti-vaxers never sleep

[MineralMan]

2. Oh, FFS!

If you don't like vaccines, don't have them.

They've saved millions upon millions of lives. What part of that don't you get?
Smallpox has been eradicated. What part of that don't you get?
Polio has almost been eradicated. What part of that don't you get?
When was the last case of diphtheria you heard of? What part of that don't you get?

Wakefield is a fraud. I know what part of that you don't get.

[WhiteTara]

10. As I understand it, it's not the vaccine

but the carrier that is in question. I had all my vaccines and have lived a long time. Polio was rampant when I was a child and I'm grateful there was a vaccine for that.

[mike_c]

3. wakefield FALSIFIED data-- I don't give a rat's buttocks WHAT he's up to now....

The ONLY think he can do that will reestablish trust is to address the charges that he knowingly falsified data to create results that were consistent with his social agenda.

[mhatrw]

4. LOL. He wrote a BOOK to address the false charges against him.

Here is http://briandeer.com/solved/wakefield-complaint.pdf">Wakefield's exhaustive reply to the last round of Deer's trumped up charges against him.

This new round is just more of the same.

[mike_c]

6. yes, but that has been superceded by new charges....

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full

In a series of articles starting this week, and seven years after first looking into the MMR scare, journalist Brian Deer now shows the extent of Wakefield’s fraud and how it was perpetrated (doi:10.1136/bmj.c5347). Drawing on interviews, documents, and data made public at the GMC hearings, Deer shows how Wakefield altered numerous facts about the patients’ medical histories in order to support his claim to have identified a new syndrome; how his institution, the Royal Free Hospital and Medical School in London, supported him as he sought to exploit the ensuing MMR scare for financial gain; and how key players failed to investigate thoroughly in the public interest when Deer first raised his concerns.

Deer published his first investigation into Wakefield’s paper in 2004. This uncovered the possibility of research fraud, unethical treatment of children, and Wakefield’s conflict of interest through his involvement with a lawsuit against manufacturers of the MMR vaccine. Building on these findings, the GMC launched its own proceedings that focused on whether the research was ethical. But while the disciplinary panel was examining the children’s medical records in public, Deer compared them with what was published in the Lancet. His focus was now on whether the research was true.

The Office of Research Integrity in the United States defines fraud as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism. Deer unearthed clear evidence of falsification. He found that not one of the 12 cases reported in the 1998 Lancet paper was free of misrepresentation or undisclosed alteration, and that in no single case could the medical records be fully reconciled with the descriptions, diagnoses, or histories published in the journal.

more@link

Emphasis is mine. Look, I'm a scientist by profession. I tell my students from the very first day in freshman biology that they are joining a culture of honesty, where faking or manipulating data is absolutely unforgivable. Nothing that Wakefield has ever said or done is relevant any longer, not while charges of data fraud are pending.

[HuckleB]

14. +1

A bit more on this, well, a lot more, but nonetheless.

“Piltdown medicine” and Andrew Wakefield’s MMR vaccine fraud
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=9552

[mhatrw]

15. Charges brought up by a journalist with a 7 year vendetta against him?

[mike_c]

16. well, if he's faking data, that "vendetta" is entirely appropriate...

...and if he's not, then his lab notes will be an adequate defense, I would think. I mean, the sanctions keep rolling on-- he's lost his license to practice medicine, etc-- don't you think he could clear his name rather easily if the latest charges are bogus?

[mzmolly]

20. I don't think the charges are new. I think it's new that a medical journal

published them. Deer has made the claim of fraud, previously.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Wakefield turned me into a NEWT!

Uh ... I got better.

--d!

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. which vaccine helped?

wow. An anti-Gingrich vaccine. Must be super powerful.

[sharp_stick]

7. There was a post here

about true believers not allowing facts to stand in their way. Supporters of Wakefield and his really really bad example for science are sadly ranked right up there with the birthers, truthers, and moon landing hoaxers.

There is no amount of proof in the world that will ever change the mind of a true believer. There is always some massive conspiracy managing to cover up and suppress the truth.

[MineralMan]

8. The lack of respect for the scientific method and peer review

among alternative health advocates is legendary. Since virtually all alternative health systems are not evidence-based, and can't pass even the most superficial scientific scrutiny, it's no wonder that there is such lack of respect for the scientific method and evidence-based medicine.

"I believe it" is the only requirement. "I read it on the Internet" is the second most often heard argument. Anecdotal evidence, usually third-hand or worse, is the next to pop up.

I really don't care if people do whatever it is that they want, medically, to themselves. I object when they try to sell unsupported and unsupportable woo to others.

[damntexdem]

11. I'll trust the monkeys before I will Wakefield.

[mzmolly]

12. Not to mention he's had no impact on disease rates or vaccination decisions in the US.

Cases of Measles vs. vaccine coverage in US from 1998 (the year Wakefield's study was published) through 2008.

CDC documented cases of measles ...

1998 - 100
1999 - 100
2000 - 86
2001 - 116
2002 - 44
2003 - 56
2004 - 37
2005 - 66
2006 - 55
2007 - 43
2008 - 132

"MMR" Vaccine coverage levels (percentage of parents complying with MMR vaccine recommendations) according to the CDC, in the years referenced above.

1998 - 92.0
1999 - 91.5
2000 - 90.5
2001 - 91.4
2002 - 91.6
2003 - 93.0
2004 - 93.0
2005 - 91.5
2006 - 92.4
2007 - 92.3

....................................................................................................

Also of interest. ~

The number of reported measles cases from 1998-2008 was 835.
The number of measles cases in the decade prior was 63,345.

The number of reported measles deaths in the entire decade from 1998-2008 was 6.
he number of measles related deaths in the decade prior to the Wakefield study, was 135.

CDC sources for data noted above are as follows.
Vaccine coverage levels. > http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5936a2.htm?s_cid=mm5936a2_w
Cases of disease/death. > http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/G/cases&deaths.pdf

I wrote Anderson Cooper and asked him to correct recent false assertions about decreasing vaccine coverage levels and rates of disease a "result" of the Wakefield study. I will not hold my breath awaiting a retraction.

[laconicsax]

13. Poor Andrew. It wasn't his fault that he lied to earn a six-figure payoff. n/t

[Odin2005]

17. Bullshit

[Anarcho-Socialist]

18. Prediction

At some point the anti-vax movement will abandon Wakefield and will accuse him of being a Big Pharma sleeper agent out to discredit the anti-vaxxers by association.

[varkam]

19. Wait for it....wait for it....

[trotsky]

21. Called it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=222x97757#97760

[HuckleB]

22. Fact checking Brian Deer on Andrew Wakefield

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2011/01/7246/

More...

The Big Lie – what Andrew Wakefield did was possible and fraudulent
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2011/01/the-big-lie-what-andrew-wakefield-did-was-possible-and-fraudulent/


Smearing Brian Deer will not help. He has not done anything that warrants such an attack.