The Independent: Italian court rules MMR vaccine did trigger autism

[proverbialwisdom]

129. False. This is in the weeds for me, but if you are seriously interested, examine these with care.

Here's a recent peer-reviewed publication by prestigious researchers citing 3 papers co-authored by Dr. AJ Wakefield out of 95 total references, and from among Wakefield's "over 140 original scientific articles, book chapters, and invited scientific commentaries."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3174969/

Published online 2011 September 16. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024585
PMCID: PMC3174969.

Impaired Carbohydrate Digestion and Transport and Mucosal Dysbiosis in the Intestines of Children with Autism and Gastrointestinal Disturbances

Brent L. Williams,1 Mady Hornig,1 Timothy Buie,2 Margaret L. Bauman,3 Myunghee Cho Paik,4 Ivan Wick,1 Ashlee Bennett,1 Omar Jabado,1 David L. Hirschberg,1 and W. Ian Lipkin1,*

1Center for Infection and Immunity, Columbia University, New York, New York, United States of America

2Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

3Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School and Departments of Neurology and Pediatrics and Learning and Developmental Disabilities Evaluation and Rehabilitation Services (LADDERS), Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

4Department of Biostatistics, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, New York, New York, United States of America

FOOTNOTES:
3. Wakefield AJ, Anthony A, Murch SH, Thomson M, Montgomery SM, et al. Enterocolitis in children with developmental disorders. Am J Gastroenterol. 2000;95:2285–2295.[PubMed]
4. Wakefield AJ, Ashwood P, Limb K, Anthony A. The significance of ileo-colonic lymphoid nodular hyperplasia in children with autistic spectrum disorder. Eur J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2005;17:827–836.[PubMed]
9. Ashwood P, Anthony A, Torrente F, Wakefield AJ. Spontaneous mucosal lymphocyte cytokine profiles in children with autism and gastrointestinal symptoms: mucosal immune activation and reduced counter regulatory interleukin-10. J Clin Immunol. 2004;24:664–673.[PubMed]

http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/10/the-wakefield-rehabilitation.html

The Wakefield Rehabilitation?

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.
October 11, 2011

No responsible historian quotes Unabomber Ted Kaczynski for a proper understanding of the Industrial Revolution and the struggles of a technological age.

So why is uber-scientist Dr. W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University quoting with approval the work of Dr. Andrew Wakefield? Isn't Wakefield supposed to the author of our common mass delusion that vaccines are linked to autism?

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Can somebody please explain all of this to me?

Isn't Dr. Wakefield supposed to be some super-villain, leading all of us gullible parents to believe that vaccines aren't quite as safe as sugar water? Didn't he make up fake diseases? So, after being stripped of his license to practice medicine in the U. K., it turns out there really is something called autistic entercolitis and ileo-colonic lymphoid nodular hyperplasia in children with autism. At least Dr. W. Ian Lipkin seems to think so.

Has anybody told Trine Tsouderous of the Chicago Tribune about this? I'm sure she'll want to get right to work getting Dr. W. Ian Lipkin fired from Columbia University.

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Translation for those of you who are not Columbia University Professors - There's a lot that's wrong in the digestive system of kids with autism! Maybe it's affecting their brain and behavior! Let's investigate!

After more than ten years of loose stools from my daughter, I don't need to be a Columbia University professor to know that.

But if a big shot scientist like Dr. W. Ian Lipkin is quoting Dr. Andrew Wakefield as a reliable source, maybe the rest of the world will soon be doing the same thing.

And that would be righting one of our new century's greatest injustices.

Kent Heckenlively is a Contributing Editor to Age of Autism

Here's the case that the Lancet paper should be reinstated following the successful appeal by Professor John Walker-Smith in March.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/04/the-lancet-should-reinstate-the-andrew-wakefield-paper.html

The Lancet should Reinstate the Andrew Wakefield Paper

By Martin Hewitt
Posted by Age of Autism at April 23, 2012

In the wake of the High Court judgment on Professor John Walker-Smith’s appeal against the decision of the General Medical Council (the UK regulatory body for doctors) to delicense him, what should now happen to the retracted paper he co-authored with Dr Andrew Wakefield? The decision lies with The Lancet editor, Dr Richard Horton. But what are the grounds for reinstating the paper as a properly conducted clinical investigation into 12 children with autism and bowel disease admitted to the paediatric gastroenterology department at the Royal Free Hospital (RFH) London in the mid-1990s? The paper was the focus of the GMC’s trial of the three senior authors on charges of serious professional misconduct which led to the delicensing of Walker-Smith and Wakefield.

Background

Few academic articles have been dogged by the controversy attending the now retracted Lancet Paper ‘Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children’ since its publication in February 1998. (Another link to retracted paper here: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2897%2911096-0/fulltext#article_upsell .) In seeking to avert controversy The Lancet published an editorial accompanying the paper to warn against drawing the wrong conclusions that the paper had established that the MMR caused autism and bowel disease. The paper, which went through several cautious redrafts, said it "did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described”, adding that “Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue”.

On publication the RFH took the exceptional step of holding a press conference to launch the paper in the hope of preventing the media and public from concluding that the MMR was unsafe and to avert a collapse in MMR take-up. When Dr Andrew Wakefield the lead writer was asked by the press if he would personally support the three-in-one MMR vaccine, he responded by advising parents to choose the single measles, mumps and rubella vaccines spaced out at intervals. Whilst his comments were seized on by the press as evidence that the MMR was unsafe and by the medical establishment as highly irresponsible, his answer accorded with official government policy. At the time the government vaccination schedule offered the choice between MMR and the three separate vaccines, in accord with the Department of Health's express policy when the MMR was launched in 1988.

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http://www.vaccinesafetyfirst.com/pdf/LANCET%20pdf.pdf
‘Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children’ published in the Lancet, February 1998.

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The Mitting Judgment and the Lancet paper

Having digested much of the hearing's 149 days of submissions and evidence and many other related papers, and heard Queens Counsels for Walker-Smith and the GMC, on 7 March J Mitting quashed all charges against the Professor.

Inevitably the thorough and irrevocable negation of the charges against Walker-Smith and of the GMC’s legal case, based on its deep misunderstanding of The Lancet paper, raises an important question of the status of the Wakefield et al paper, which is still listed as retracted, to which we now turn.

There is no doubt that the Mitting judgment goes to the heart of the way the GMC exercised its regulatory powers in this case. He outrightly criticises the "universal inadequacies" and "inadequate and superficial reasoning" of the disciplinary panel's approach, and recognised the personal suffering the GMC had inflicted on Walker-Smith. "It would be a misfortune if this were to happen again" he concluded on delivering his judgment.

More specifically, the Mitting judgment rejects the two fundamental grounds the GMC gave for finding the three doctors guilty of serious professional misconduct and so undermines The Lancet‘s argument for retraction based on these grounds; out go the claims that the patients were not consecutively referred to the department of paediatric gastroenterology and that the investigations did not have ethics committee approval.

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http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/04/jon-edwards-video-trailer-a-story-of-hope-and-autism-.html

Jon Edwards Video Trailer: A Story of Hope and Autism

Posted April 30, 2012
By John Stone, UK Editor for Age of Autism

Following the exoneration of John Walker-Smith in the High Court in March I wrote to the Lancet’s editor, Richard Horton, pleading with him to re-instate the Wakefield 1998 paper in the interests of children in the UK being denied medical investigation and treatment following the witch-hunt against Wakefield and colleagues both in the Sunday Times, and latterly British Medical Journal. Horton replied lamely:

“Dear Mr Stone - I would be horrified if doctors did not take the symptoms of any child seriously. So I sincerely hope that a child with symptoms of autism would be examined and investigated with care and sensitivity.

“My Best, Richard Horton”

(Email, 15 March 2012, 10.07pm)

To which I fired back:

“That is why you should re-instate the paper. It has become ideologically taboo in this country to accept that there is a real problem. The GMC tried to make out that the cases were fabricated and that gastro symptoms were only superficial, and the judge decided that they only selected the evidence which suited them. But for years members of the medical profession have been terrified to follow in their footsteps, and really based on the words of Mr Deer, Evan Harris, Tony Blair and Liam Donaldson. Two of these people may have been doctors of a sort but none of them had the knowledge, the ethical probity or the kindness of John Walker-Smith.”

And answer came there none: Dr Horton may or may not be “horrified”, but so far he is not prepared to do anything about it. As Martin Hewitt pointed out here last week there is not now the faintest scientific or legal reason not to re-instate the paper. But unfortunately this not only a matter of historical fairness. As the case of Jon Edwards – highlighted in a new film from Autism Team – makes abundantly clear, until our political class and medical establishment address their bad consciences nothing for these children is going to happen in the United Kingdom.

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http://www.ageofautism.com/john-stone-uk/
http://www.ageofautism.com/dr-andrew-wakefield/