February 20, 2009

That should settle it

It appears that the guy who started the entire "Immunization causes Autism" panic faked his evidence.

As you can see, Wakefield's work and ethics are about as bad as it gets.

Or so I thought, until readers started sending me this article published in The Times, again by Wakefield's nemesis Brian Deer. Holy crap. If only a fraction of the allegations in this article are true, not only is Wakefield an unscrupulous and incompetent scientist but he's a scientific fraud as well:

The doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients' data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

How many children have gotten sick as a result of this bastard? How many parents have been taken in by this fraudulent nonsense? What is the appropriate penalty for Wakefield?

Posted by Linkmeister at February 20, 2009 09:54 AM | TrackBack
Comments

As despicable as Wakefield is...the entire immunization debate existed long before he gummed up the evidence. I remember having the to immunize or not to immunize debate with my husband and our pediatrician...in the end opting to protect our kids with the shots rather than hope for the best. I wonder if it will go away or if the legions of "believers" will just fall back on the faulty evidence from before.

Posted by: Karan at February 21, 2009 10:49 AM