Andrew Wakefield’s deeply flawed study that generated the MMR vaccine/autism scare and contributed to the anti-vaccination movement was retracted this week by The Lancet, the British medical journal where it first appeared in 1998. The British General Medical Council labeled Wakefield himself irresponsible and dishonest in his research last week, as you may have read here or elsewhere. The GMC cited, among other disturbing practices, Wakefield’s paying children for blood samples at his son’s birthday party and subjecting children to unnecessary procedures like spinal taps and colonoscopies.
This is a man who – a British newspaper discovered back in 2006 – accepted but did not disclose thousands in funding for his study from lawyers who needed evidence of MMR-vaccination injury for a lawsuit:
Critics this weekend voiced amazement at the sums, which they said created a clear conflict of interest and were the “financial engine” behind a worldwide alarm over the triple measles, mumps and rubella shot.
- Brian Deer, The Sunday Times
Investigative journalist Brian Deer has been researching and reporting on the Wakefield case for years. Check out Solved – the riddle of MMR on his site for more links to stories and research about the original study.
Full retractions like this one are a big deal. Huge, in fact, and it would be nice if this were the end of the story.
But it won’t be.
The Huffington Post, which frequently gives space to writers promoting a vaccine/autism link despite all the news and research to the contrary, has already published a piece calling the retraction “censorship.” (via Gawker)
Here’s author Kim Stagliano:
We need a thousand doctors like Andrew Wakefield, who are willing to risk their careers and reputations in order to find out what is happening to our children and how to heal them. That’s what physician scientists do after all. Help and heal.
A thousand doctors like Wakefield? If we had a thousand studies like Wakefield’s, a thousand research articles whose theories spread and scared people, despite being discredited and before they are finally retracted after 12 years, would we have even more parents turning down vaccines for their children? We’re already experiencing a rise in vaccine-preventable diseases. More of that’s a truly terrifying thought.
Consider the following quote from self-proclaimed “mother warrior” Jenny McCarthy, a vocal player in the vaccine-injury movement:
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 fucking fault that the diseases are coming back. They’re making a product that’s shit. If you give us a safe vaccine, we’ll use it. It shouldn’t be polio versus autism.
- Time
Actually, no.
It’s not polio versus autism. It’s polio versus not getting polio. Because no research has ever proven a link between childhood vaccinations and autism, not ever.
This, by the way, was her response to interviewer and Time science editor Jeffrey Kluger’s question about rising polio rates, considering her collaborator’s recommendation that new parents accept only the Hib (for epiglottis, pneumonia, bacterial meningitis) and tetanus vaccines and “think about” the rest.
Read it again. Are you okay with polio just “coming back?”
I know I’m not.
Even scarier, Oprah Winfrey’s company signed a deal with McCarthy last spring to produce her syndicated talk show. When you consider the scope of Oprah’s influence – and as far as I can tell, Oprah has remained silent on the retraction – that gives McCarthy an even broader platform to keep suggesting a vaccine/autism link than Oprah’s own show, where she’s appeared several times.
Check out what Liane Carter, autism mom, thinks about McCarthy’s activism on the New York Times’ Motherlode.
I’ve heard McCarthy say on national TV, ‘Evan is my science.’ I’m sorry, one little boy is not ’science.’ Warm and fuzzy anecdotes don’t do it for me. Give me hard science any day, with its double blind studies and rigorous peer review. . . .
It’s time for the media to stop giving airtime to celebrities with no medical credentials who peddle unrealistic hopes to families dealing with a devastating diagnosis.
if only a full retraction meant that people would no longer quote that “link” like a religion.
The other thing, is the retraction isn’t going to garner half as much press as the original article did.
*fumes at the mention of this debate*
Re: calling the retraction “censorship” OF COURSE IT IS CENSORSHIP. I only trust peer-reviewed scientific journals because they are the most rigorously censored publications out there. It’s not about freedom of speech, it’s about science and scrutinizing the experimental process.
Oh, how I could go on and on, but I won’t. For some reason this particular issue has really irked me since I was like 14.
So glad this retraction happened.
Sara–That’s why I keep writing about it. Now that I think about it, you should, too, and send me the link so I can direct readers over here to it.
What drives me up the wall with antivaxers is that they often resort to emotional arguments about their children since facts are not on their side.
And I’m sympathetic to what autism parents face. I may not live it myself, but my sister does. Her son, my 8 year-old nephew, has autism and I know what she goes through. But despite the challenges her son faces and her hopes for his future, she doesn’t follow this vaccine/autism myth, either. And she vaccinates her children.
The thing is, as asthma parents we could use OUR kids as an argument, too, couldn’t we? The way threatening herd immunity is a bigger risk to them than it is to kids without a chronic breathing issue. Then again, we don’t have to, what with ACTUAL SCIENCE on our side.
Okay, rant over. (for now)
Danielle–Have you read that whole post, too? It doesn’t even address the actual, unethical concerns that the GMC, the Lancet, and Brian Deer’s articles all point to. I started writing a post directed just to that one alone, but A) it infuriated me even more, the closer I read it, and B) it would’ve taken hours.
But I still might.
You know what’s really, really scary…I read an article with Jenny McCarthy over the summer, in Cookie Magazine…and even to ME, who thinks she’s a nutjob…the WAY she said stuff seemed to make sense…until you really thought about it.
I have to laugh a little, at a person I know who on one hand, will say she knew that her child was Autistic, nearly from birth…but on the other, say “I think people who don’t vaccinate are protecting their children from Spectrum disorders” It’s almost like a splinter group of moms have been brainwashed into believing that the MMR causes Autism…that’s what I meant as quoting the link between autism and vaccines like a religion.
Imagine how much safer OUR kiddos would be if EVERYONE got the flu vaccine. I know I wouldn’t be so scared every year, until my AG got her shot.
I sometimes write a post that collates blog responses, both positive and negative, to a given issue.
I’m keeping one now on responses to the Lancet retraction of the Wakefield’s paper.
I’ve added your post to the list.
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2010/02/on-the-lancets-retraction-of-wakefields-1998-paper-alleging-a-connection-between-the-mmr-vaccine-and.html
The good news is that the lack of connection between any vaccine and autism is finally getting some traction in the mainstream media.