Dr A Wakefield & The MMR Vaccine

[allycat228]

As there are some parents on this forum, I was wondering what other people thought about the mmr jabs and what do you think will happen to Dr wakefield?

[Mark]

For those of you who are sitting there thinking "WTF" right now


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6289166.stm
MMR scare doctor 'paid children'
The doctor who first suggested a link between MMR and autism paid children £5 for their blood samples at his son's birthday party, a hearing was told.

Dr Andrew Wakefield and two colleagues face professional misconduct charges over their controversial research into the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.

[Dave B]

1 rogue doctor, allegedly involved in a commercial single vaccine and with an alleged vested interest in discrediting MMR, produced some highly questionable "evidence" that MMR was linked to autism, backed up by samples allegedly taken in some cases from kids at his own son's birthday party.

Dozens of independent, peer reviewed, unbiased studies proved there was no such link.

Hmmmm, I wonder who I believe....

[Curryhead]

I have a son who is Autistic, not to familiar with the Dr Wakefield thing, but is he the guy who first tried to link the MMR/Autism thing? Anyway, for me, I think there is no smoke without fire, I can definately say his behaviour changed around the time as his said jabs....

[Dave B]

I spent a month in hospital not long after buying a Madonna CD. Doesn't mean there's a link.

[Curryhead]

I spent a month in hospital not long after buying a Madonna CD. Doesn't mean there's a link.

no, of course not Dave, but what I do know is I once had a son as "normal" as could be expected, now at the time we noticed his change, there was no way we would have said it was that MMR jab he had a few months previous, indeed, it was well over 16yrs ago, however, since the "scare" a few years back, we where able to say it was around the time he had his jab that his change occured, we know a lot of parents of Autistic children who feel they they can pinpoint a change around this time too, some almost instant, some like us months later. I hope I am wrong, but what I have now is a son who will need constant care and supervision for the rest of his days, for me and many others, I believe there is a link between the jabs and his condition, I might like to add that I don't think the MMR is the sole cause of Autism, but I do believe in a lot of case's the jabs have caused it

[BDunnell]

This whole affair proved that there are ridiculously large sections of the British public who believe the first thing they read in their Daily Scare. In my job at the time, we received loads of correspondence from people who were refusing to allow their children to have the MMR jab on the basis of the apparent link between it and autism, about which they had done nothing more than read. This was in spite of the fact that there was no real scientific evidence linking the two. I am sure that this was repeated around the country.

[Malbec]

I have a son who is Autistic, not to familiar with the Dr Wakefield thing, but is he the guy who first tried to link the MMR/Autism thing? Anyway, for me, I think there is no smoke without fire, I can definately say his behaviour changed around the time as his said jabs....

Autism manifests itself between the ages of 1 and 3 usually, which coincides of course with the MMR vaccine. That doesn't mean there's a link and in countries that have the MMR vaccine at a later stage in life there's still an increasing incidence of autism.

What Dr Wakefield did was totally reprehensible. Not only did he manipulate his data to meet his hypothesis, he totally refused to acknowledge any possibility that he may be wrong and never accepted the consequences of his scaremongering.

It all started looking dodgy when he called a press conference to coincide with the publishing of his paper in the lancet. That never ever happens and it was pretty obvious that something dodgy was going on.

The medical profession initially didn't bother debunking his paper because if you actually read it its so full of holes that it barely makes sense and it was simply assumed that it would be obvious to any and everyone that it was utter garbage.

Unfortunately that assumes a fair degree of scientific paper reading skills amongst journalists and a desire not to sensationalise, a rather naive assumption to say the least and the damage was done pretty quickly.

Thanks to Dr Wakefield and the campaigns by papers in particular the Daily Mail to attack the MMR vaccine uptake rates have dropped and we've lost herd immunity. I'm afraid the UK population is about to be hit by another epidemic of measles and we're going to find out exactly why our parents and grandparents generations took to the vaccine with such enthusiasm, because measles can be utterly devastating.

I do hope he and the Daily Mail have the decency to fund the care of those who will be crippled by measles for the rest of their lives....

And yes, I do believe he should be struck off, bringing the medical profession into disrepute, negatively affecting the nations health and neglecting the primary consideration of 'first do no harm' should be enough to do the trick.

[Curryhead]

what Dr Wakefield has done is in my opinion, totally wrong, he may well have had good medical theories to make him go down that path,I do not know, I hear plenty of official arguments saying MMR is not linked, but I do not hear any official theories why this condition manifests, don't get me wrong, I'm not the bloke trying to find a scapegoat and sue, I accept what my son has and like many others just get on with it, fair enough, I am no doctor, never will be, to stupid me :dozey: but I feel strongly, without going in to to much detail (which I'm not good at) that there is a hell of alot I am not being told

[Malbec]

Curryhead, noone actually knows exactly what causes autism though we can tell from studies what DOESN'T cause it, and vaccination is one of those things that we can safely say doesn't cause it. One of the problems with Dr Wakefield's work is that he gave false hope to parents of autistic children that he had found a cause and many of his most vocal supporters are from that group.

Autism is getting more common in countries that don't use MMR like Japan which uses single vaccines at the age of 3 or 4, and where they lose quite a few children to measles before that age every year.

[Dave B]

One of the problems with Dr Wakefield's work is that he gave false hope to parents of autistic children that he had found a cause and many of his most vocal supporters are from that group.
I felt sorry for the supporters who cheered Wakefield as he entered the court today. They're deluded and ignorant of course, but on the other hand desperately clinging to the hope that he's right as they seek an explanation for their kids' condition. Who'd be a parent?

[Drew]

When it says he gave children money to take blood, did he directly ask the children? :confused:

[allycat228]

I am not saying Dr Wakefield is right or wrong, but i do feel that parents should be offered the choice of having single jabs

[BDunnell]

I am not saying Dr Wakefield is right or wrong, but i do feel that parents should be offered the choice of having single jabs

Why, if single jabs are of no greater benefit in health terms than having one?

[Malbec]

I am not saying Dr Wakefield is right or wrong, but i do feel that parents should be offered the choice of having single jabs

Problem with the single jab vaccine is that uptake is much lower than with the MMR, ultimately people are more compliant if they have two single jabs instead of having six.

[Daniel]

I think people simply look for a scapegoat to blame their childs illness on because "This sort of thing just can't happen to us for no reason" and blame it on immunisation for some reason. If parents DON'T immunise their children then the sort of diseases which meant their children died suddenly in their early years with saddening regularity will become prevalent again.

I always took the optional flu jab through work in Australia even though people warned me that "It'll give you the flu!" and never had the flu till I came here and didn't have the jab.

It is sad as Dave says that these people are cheering this creep. I think I might go and kill all 500 people I work with and then explain that I did it for the kids of Britain. I do expect all of you to be at court giving me support for what i did because I did it for YOUR kids.

[LotusElise]

Daniel makes some very good points.

While the Wakefield furore was raging before, this vile woman seemed to be on the radio all the time, bleating on and on about how she was certain that vaccination had caused her son's autism. She made me really angry because instead of being with her son and doing everything in her power to help him learn and live life to the full, she was spending her time gobbing off to the media at every turn and looking for someone to blame. I can't remember her name but I know it was the same person I kept hearing as I recognised her voice.
I used to look after an autistic boy (he's 19 now) and what children like him need is lots of consistency and certainty in their lives, not media attention and absent parents.

[Daniel]

Daniel makes some very good points.

While the Wakefield furore was raging before, this vile woman seemed to be on the radio all the time, bleating on and on about how she was certain that vaccination had caused her son's autism. She made me really angry because instead of being with her son and doing everything in her power to help him learn and live life to the full, she was spending her time gobbing off to the media at every turn and looking for someone to blame. I can't remember her name but I know it was the same person I kept hearing as I recognised her voice.
I used to look after an autistic boy (he's 19 now) and what children like him need is lots of consistency and certainty in their lives, not media attention and absent parents.
How can you say this about that woman!!!!! She was merely fighting for her child while ignoring it's immediate needs. You horrible vile fiend! You must indeed hate children :p

[BDunnell]

I think people simply look for a scapegoat to blame their childs illness on because "This sort of thing just can't happen to us for no reason" and blame it on immunisation for some reason.

That reason being that they have read or heard about Wakefield's 'doubts' in the media. No-one would have known otherwise. The newspaper that, as per its usual scaremongering, gave some credence to his views should be ashamed.

[Daniel]

That reason being that they have read or heard about Wakefield's 'doubts' in the media. No-one would have known otherwise. The newspaper that, as per its usual scaremongering, gave some credence to his views should be ashamed.
But they won't be. Haha!