Re: MMR; Salon.com's take on this

[Guest guest]

I agree with the original parent who asked... " play nice " that means it's up to

each of us to make our own decisions based on what we know. We are all loving

parents -we share that- even if we don't agree on vaccines which clearly will

always be a hot topic.

Here's an interesting take on this from a medical doctor:

The autism-vaccine lie that won't die

The media trumpeted an irresponsible study, ensuring that its nasty legacy

thrives

By Rahul K. Parikh, M.D.

Feb. 05, 2010 |

This week, Dr. Wakefield's now infamous study linking the MMR vaccine to

autism was finally retracted by the prestigious Lancet medical journal. The move

came days after medical officials in the United Kingdom found the doctor guilty

of multiple ethics violations. For doctors, this is a victory -- but a

bittersweet one.

As a pediatrician, I grapple daily with what Wakefield wrought: parents who are

twisted in knots -- to the point of tears -- about whether to immunize their

child. In the 12 years since the publication of Wakefield's study, 10 of his

fellow co-authors have denounced him, and an unremitting series of revelations

have exposed just how corrupt his motives and methods were. Most important,

multiple studies verified there is no link between the MMR (or any other)

vaccine and autism. Meanwhile, infectious diseases once confined to medical

history have broken out in our communities. To say the retraction is criminally

overdue is an understatement.

Further, even as Wakefield's research is expunged from the scientific record,

what he spawned -- a well-funded, vocal, even rabid movement -- will remain.

Without him, poster girl McCarthy would have been abandoned in the MTV

archives instead of smugly crowing to Time magazine, " I do believe sadly it's

going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and

develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to

us, it's their f___ing fault that the diseases are coming back. They're making a

product that's s___ . " And anti-vaccine darling Kirby would split his time

between running a P.R. firm and writing pithy articles about art and aircraft

instead of turning speculation and rumor into a Kennedy-esque vaccine-autism

conspiracy theory. Finally, Wakefield himself stands to be completely unaffected

by both the U.K. medical community (which could revoke his license to practice

there) and the Lancet's decision. He long ago settled here in the U.S. and

successfully peddles his views through his Thoughtful House autism center in

Texas.

Still, while the media busily finger-wagged, blogged and tweeted about the

damnation of Wakefield, I wondered whether it considered its own

complicity in the whole sordid affair.

The anti-vaccine hysteria, after all, began like so many other big stories: with

a press conference. That's where Wakefield first staked his claim that

the MMR vaccine caused autism, according to Offit's book, " Autism's False

Prophets. " Wakefield wasn't flanked by doctors or hospital officials but by P.R.

folks he had hired himself. " One case of [autism] is too many, " he said. " It's a

moral issue for me, and I can't support the continued use of [the MMR vaccine]

until this issue has been resolved. "

The problem, of course, is that a news conference loads a gun that the media

usually pulls the trigger on: Headlines like " Ban Three-in-One Jab, Doctors

Urge " started rolling off the presses. While measles made a tragic resurgence,

few reporters attempted to scrutinize Wakefield or his audacious claim. (Even

Salon has its own history of bad reporting on the topic, in a controversial and

inaccurate 2005 piece by F. Kennedy Jr.)

Former CNN reporter Schwitzer is a University of Minnesota professor whose

expertise is healthcare and the media, and he sees complicated issues in their

intersection. " I tell my students to look for stories that are counterintuitive,

because they can make good news, " he told me. But if reporters don't care about

the underlying science, and don't have the tools to dissect and question it, " it

can be very easy to get excited about hazards and scares " that lack a credible

basis.

Then there's the pressure to report something, anything to make your bosses

happy. Schwitzer told me about a story he covered for CNN in the 1980s, when

Utah doctors first tried to implant an artificial heart in a patient. He

recalled how the doctors would have hourly news conferences updating the

patient's condition. In it, they mostly recited mundane facts, like the amount

of urine the patient was producing. But Schwitzer had to get on camera almost

hourly and update viewers with something, whatever it might be.

ly, progress in science and medicine occurs much more slowly than the news

cycle can tolerate. " Science, " says Schwitzer, " is like a slow winding stream.

It has ebbs and flows, and twists and changes in its path that, if you don't

follow, can fool you. But too many reporters, unfortunately, like to dip their

toe in the water, run back and report about it without following that river to

where it leads. "

Rather than dig for details, many reporters rely on " balance " instead. My

favorite comment about this comes from, of all people, Arianna Huffington.

Sometimes, she says, there simply aren't two sides to a story. Evolution, for

instance. Or global warming. And given the weight of scientific, legal and

ethical evidence against anti-vaccinationists, you'd think Huffington would heed

her own rhetoric. Yet there was her Web site, with stories turning Wakefield

into a martyr and twisting innuendo into medical fact. And it's not just HuffPo

-- CNN, in a report on Wakefield, added " balance " to its coverage by featuring

Kim Stagliano, the co-founder of anti-vaccine group Age of Autism.

But it's unfair to hold the mainstream media completely responsible for its

behavior. The Lancet, one of the world's most well-known medical publications,

played an enormous role here, showing us how medical journals are at risk for

their own kinds of malpractice. Offit's " False Prophets " details how

Horton, then the journal's editor in chief, seemed enamored of the notion of

publishing something muckraking. As Offit writes, " By ignoring the criticisms of

several reviewers, the warnings of an accompanying editorial, Wakefield's

history of holding press conferences, a British press primed for controversy,

and a public distrustful of pubic health officials, Horton allowed the

public to question the safety of a vaccine based on flimsy, irreproducible data.

The loss of the public trust that followed was entirely predictable. "

Schwitzer points out that, like magazines, newspapers and the Web, medical

journals have business interests as well. For example, major journals regularly

publish their own news releases. " They don't carry everything, just the sexier

items. " Those items, he believes, are probably not chosen by a committee of peer

reviewers, but rather by employees whose goal is to increase the visibility,

prestige, advertising and reprint revenue of their publication. Also, the very

fact that these releases come from a medical journal lead reporters to believe

" it's etched in stone on a mountaintop. " Reporters latch on, using the old

standby " according to a study in the [fill in title of journal] " to lend

credibility to their shocking story. The problem, of course, is that nobody

bothers to check the credibility of the study in the first place.

Still, despite it all, there is room for a little hope between the media and

medicine. The inflection point in the history of the Wakefield Affair

came because one individual wouldn't stop asking questions, raising doubts and

digging deeper. His name is Deer, an investigative reporter for the Times

of London. It was his research and reporting that exposed Wakefield's

malfeasance. When Deer first confronted Horton and the Lancet editors

with what he had discovered back in 2004, even Horton -- stubbornly defensive

even now about his decision to publish Wakefield's study -- gasped. " The

allegations made by Deer, as I saw them were devastating, " he recalled.

Deer's reputation and hard work got a big pop-culture boost on this side of the

pond as well. It was his reporting that inspired Olbermann to declare

Wakefield the " Worst Person in the World " on his show a year ago .

But the next day, Olbermann, like some preying mantis eating its own, turned

around and anointed Deer as one of the worst persons in the world for

having an alleged conflict of interest in the Wakefield investigation himself.

He did not, as it turns out; the allegation proved false, but not before

anti-vaccine bullies at HuffPo and the Age of Autism trumpeted it on the Web. It

was hard to believe Olbermann hadn't been pressured by them.

Bittersweet, indeed.

-- By Rahul K. Parikh, M.D.

http://www.salon.com/news/autism/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/02/04/autism\

_debunked

=====

[Guest guest]

I'm sorry, he could show a MD, but if he writes

" poster girl McCarthy would have been abandoned in the MTV archives

instead of smugly crowing to Time magazine "

then I prefer to go and continue reading the articles you can find indexed on

PubMed, which link mercury (thimerosal, presents in some vaccines) and other

adjuvants (like aluminium) to neurological problems.

(Sorry about the bad English, I just self-educated on it to help my little

daughter --something I'm accomplishing quite finely)

[ ] Re: MMR; Salon.com's take on this

I agree with the original parent who asked... " play nice " that means it's up to

each of us to make our own decisions based on what we know. We are all loving

parents -we share that- even if we don't agree on vaccines which clearly will

always be a hot topic.

Here's an interesting take on this from a medical doctor:

The autism-vaccine lie that won't die

The media trumpeted an irresponsible study, ensuring that its nasty legacy

thrives

By Rahul K. Parikh, M.D.

Feb. 05, 2010 |

This week, Dr. Wakefield's now infamous study linking the MMR vaccine

to autism was finally retracted by the prestigious Lancet medical journal. The

move came days after medical officials in the United Kingdom found the doctor

guilty of multiple ethics violations. For doctors, this is a victory -- but a

bittersweet one.

As a pediatrician, I grapple daily with what Wakefield wrought: parents who

are twisted in knots -- to the point of tears -- about whether to immunize their

child. In the 12 years since the publication of Wakefield's study, 10 of his

fellow co-authors have denounced him, and an unremitting series of revelations

have exposed just how corrupt his motives and methods were. Most important,

multiple studies verified there is no link between the MMR (or any other)

vaccine and autism. Meanwhile, infectious diseases once confined to medical

history have broken out in our communities. To say the retraction is criminally

overdue is an understatement.

Further, even as Wakefield's research is expunged from the scientific record,

what he spawned -- a well-funded, vocal, even rabid movement -- will remain.

Without him, poster girl McCarthy would have been abandoned in the MTV

archives instead of smugly crowing to Time magazine, " I do believe sadly it's

going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and

develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to

us, it's their f___ing fault that the diseases are coming back. They're making a

product that's s___ . " And anti-vaccine darling Kirby would split his time

between running a P.R. firm and writing pithy articles about art and aircraft

instead of turning speculation and rumor into a Kennedy-esque vaccine-autism

conspiracy theory. Finally, Wakefield himself stands to be completely unaffected

by both the U.K. medical community (which could revoke his license to practice

there) and the Lancet's decision. He long ago settled here in the U.S. and

successfully peddles his views through his Thoughtful House autism center in

Texas.

Still, while the media busily finger-wagged, blogged and tweeted about the

damnation of Wakefield, I wondered whether it considered its own

complicity in the whole sordid affair.

The anti-vaccine hysteria, after all, began like so many other big stories:

with a press conference. That's where Wakefield first staked his claim

that the MMR vaccine caused autism, according to Offit's book, " Autism's

False Prophets. " Wakefield wasn't flanked by doctors or hospital officials but

by P.R. folks he had hired himself. " One case of [autism] is too many, " he said.

" It's a moral issue for me, and I can't support the continued use of [the MMR

vaccine] until this issue has been resolved. "

The problem, of course, is that a news conference loads a gun that the media

usually pulls the trigger on: Headlines like " Ban Three-in-One Jab, Doctors

Urge " started rolling off the presses. While measles made a tragic resurgence,

few reporters attempted to scrutinize Wakefield or his audacious claim. (Even

Salon has its own history of bad reporting on the topic, in a controversial and

inaccurate 2005 piece by F. Kennedy Jr.)

Former CNN reporter Schwitzer is a University of Minnesota professor

whose expertise is healthcare and the media, and he sees complicated issues in

their intersection. " I tell my students to look for stories that are

counterintuitive, because they can make good news, " he told me. But if reporters

don't care about the underlying science, and don't have the tools to dissect and

question it, " it can be very easy to get excited about hazards and scares " that

lack a credible basis.

Then there's the pressure to report something, anything to make your bosses

happy. Schwitzer told me about a story he covered for CNN in the 1980s, when

Utah doctors first tried to implant an artificial heart in a patient. He

recalled how the doctors would have hourly news conferences updating the

patient's condition. In it, they mostly recited mundane facts, like the amount

of urine the patient was producing. But Schwitzer had to get on camera almost

hourly and update viewers with something, whatever it might be.

ly, progress in science and medicine occurs much more slowly than the

news cycle can tolerate. " Science, " says Schwitzer, " is like a slow winding

stream. It has ebbs and flows, and twists and changes in its path that, if you

don't follow, can fool you. But too many reporters, unfortunately, like to dip

their toe in the water, run back and report about it without following that

river to where it leads. "

Rather than dig for details, many reporters rely on " balance " instead. My

favorite comment about this comes from, of all people, Arianna Huffington.

Sometimes, she says, there simply aren't two sides to a story. Evolution, for

instance. Or global warming. And given the weight of scientific, legal and

ethical evidence against anti-vaccinationists, you'd think Huffington would heed

her own rhetoric. Yet there was her Web site, with stories turning Wakefield

into a martyr and twisting innuendo into medical fact. And it's not just HuffPo

-- CNN, in a report on Wakefield, added " balance " to its coverage by featuring

Kim Stagliano, the co-founder of anti-vaccine group Age of Autism.

But it's unfair to hold the mainstream media completely responsible for its

behavior. The Lancet, one of the world's most well-known medical publications,

played an enormous role here, showing us how medical journals are at risk for

their own kinds of malpractice. Offit's " False Prophets " details how

Horton, then the journal's editor in chief, seemed enamored of the notion of

publishing something muckraking. As Offit writes, " By ignoring the criticisms of

several reviewers, the warnings of an accompanying editorial, Wakefield's

history of holding press conferences, a British press primed for controversy,

and a public distrustful of pubic health officials, Horton allowed the

public to question the safety of a vaccine based on flimsy, irreproducible data.

The loss of the public trust that followed was entirely predictable. "

Schwitzer points out that, like magazines, newspapers and the Web,

medical journals have business interests as well. For example, major journals

regularly publish their own news releases. " They don't carry everything, just

the sexier items. " Those items, he believes, are probably not chosen by a

committee of peer reviewers, but rather by employees whose goal is to increase

the visibility, prestige, advertising and reprint revenue of their publication.

Also, the very fact that these releases come from a medical journal lead

reporters to believe " it's etched in stone on a mountaintop. " Reporters latch

on, using the old standby " according to a study in the [fill in title of

journal] " to lend credibility to their shocking story. The problem, of course,

is that nobody bothers to check the credibility of the study in the first place.

Still, despite it all, there is room for a little hope between the media and

medicine. The inflection point in the history of the Wakefield Affair

came because one individual wouldn't stop asking questions, raising doubts and

digging deeper. His name is Deer, an investigative reporter for the Times

of London. It was his research and reporting that exposed Wakefield's

malfeasance. When Deer first confronted Horton and the Lancet editors

with what he had discovered back in 2004, even Horton -- stubbornly defensive

even now about his decision to publish Wakefield's study -- gasped. " The

allegations made by Deer, as I saw them were devastating, " he recalled.

Deer's reputation and hard work got a big pop-culture boost on this side of

the pond as well. It was his reporting that inspired Olbermann to declare

Wakefield the " Worst Person in the World " on his show a year ago .

But the next day, Olbermann, like some preying mantis eating its own, turned

around and anointed Deer as one of the worst persons in the world for

having an alleged conflict of interest in the Wakefield investigation himself.

He did not, as it turns out; the allegation proved false, but not before

anti-vaccine bullies at HuffPo and the Age of Autism trumpeted it on the Web. It

was hard to believe Olbermann hadn't been pressured by them.

Bittersweet, indeed.

-- By Rahul K. Parikh, M.D.

http://www.salon.com/news/autism/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/02/04/autism\

_debunked

=====

[Guest guest]

Madeline I agree nobody should put anyone else down -but at the same time I

don't believe anyone should put anyone else up on a pedestal either. We are all

human and make mistakes. I believe as a medical doctor that he was responding

to the statement made that was at the end of the sentence you quoted and

left off

" I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to realize that

we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies

are not listening to us, it's their f___ing fault that the diseases are coming

back. They're making a product that's s___ . " ~ McCarthy

(head's up if you feel this strongly about that one statement may not want to

click on the link I have below to the article from the MD and read what else is

on the page- and I'm not talking about the article " The comedy of Asperger's "

about Abed on " Community, " LOVE Abed!!!)

I found this to be a very informative radio show:

" How did the Lancet, Britain's oldest and most respected medical journal, come

to publish a fraudulent study linking the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination with

autism? There was no scientific basis for the claim and the paper's lead author

was being paid by a personal-injury lawyer who represented several children in

the study. "

24 February 2010

Rear Vision

Sun 1pm

In today's information age we know when things happen almost immediately but so

often we don't know or understand why. News and current affairs are

instantaneous but more often than not presented in a historical vacuum. Rear

Vision attempts to change this by presenting contemporary events and people in

their historical context.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2010/2822340.htm

Again I want to just throw in there that I would still vaccinate my sons if I

had to do it over- and my son did appear to regress after his third hep vaccine

-but again back then there was thimerosal in the vaccine. Sallie Bernard who is

behind much of the push against thimerosal due to her own son (safeminds/Cure

Autism Now) has always told me this is about thimerosal. It's being informed

not pro or anti vaccine. If one is against vaccines -I suggest studying history

or we are going to be forced to repeat it. (and due to this as it's clear that

where we are heading -that is why I WOULD vaccinate -to protect my children and

do what I can to protect others too)

Again we are all loving parents -so don't take anger out here on me or others

-we all have a right to do what we believe is best -and as the pediatrician

states below- parents are in tears over not knowing what to do - THAT is the

reason I posted this one particular article. Again to me this topic when

started wasn't about thimerosal or Wakefield -it was about one parent asking

nicely what opinions are out there for the MMR. It's OK if we disagree on some

-that's how we grow and learn!

And by the way -your English is wonderful -I wish I could self study and pick up

another language -Wow!!!

=====