Wakefield's Hearing Begins

Today began the Wakefield Trial, I don't know if there will be reporting on it, but I will post it if I come across it.

His supporters have two efforts underway:

This Petition

and

CryShame.co.uk

NAA's press release today:

Parents and advocacy groups call inquiry against Dr. Andrew Wakefield a “witch hunt”

National Autism Association Tells England’s GMC to Instead Ask: Why Are So Many Kids Sick?

Washington, DC - Parents and advocacy groups around the globe are asking England’s General Medical Council (GMC) to cancel the “fitness to practice” inquiry that begins today against Dr. Andy Wakefield, and Professors Walker-Smith and Murch. Advocates say the GMC should instead be asking why so many kids are sick, especially in light of an apparently suppressed analysis showing that autism rates in England are as high as 1 in 58. The medical establishment is being criticized for doing little to find the cause, treat the kids, or prevent new cases.

“The list of charges reveal the utter lack of any case against Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues, who are at risk of losing their licenses,” according to National Autism Association (NAA) board member and parent Scott Bono. The charges, only made known last week, relate primarily to a peer-reviewed case report published in 1998 in the “Early Reports” section of The Lancet, one of England’s leading medical journals: Ileal-lymphoid-nodular-hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive disability disorder in children. This first report of a new syndrome, never refuted or retracted, has since been repeatedly reported and studied by other researchers. Vaccine-strain measles virus has been found and sequenced from gut biopsies and cerebral spinal fluid in autistic children.

The charges originated from internet blogger Brian Deer, who many parents have suggested may be linked to the pharmaceutical industry. “This is nothing more than a witch hunt brought against scientists willing to undertake ground-breaking research challenging the assumption that autism is an inherited untreatable psychiatric disorder that cannot be prevented. Implicating the safety of vaccines such as MMR isn’t acceptable to drug companies or government officials who want to protect the vaccine program itself at the cost of the health of children,” said Mr. Bono.

The evidence will demonstrate that questioned diagnostic studies used by Dr. Wakefield, such as colonoscopies and lumbar punctures, were not only approved by ethics review but were clinically indicated. These have now been accepted as the standard of care by a group of leading pediatric gastroenterologists in the United States.

Other charges concern incomplete disclosures of what the advocacy groups consider irrelevant material that could appear to be a conflict of interest only to vaccine makers and government agencies shielding vaccines from legitimate and appropriate criticism. Dr. Wakefield had consulted with lawyers and families receiving government funding from the Legal Aid Board on an entirely separate study to determine whether measles virus could be identified in the diseased gut tissue, providing vital evidence for a possible class action. The legal aid board subsequently determined that this explanation for autism was more probable than not, but under government pressure dropped funding for the suit.

In the first of 5000 cases to be heard in a special vaccine court in the US last month, evidence presented demonstrated that 12-year old Michelle Cedillo began regressing into autism just a week after her MMR vaccination at 15 months. The plausible cause was a persistent measles infection which took hold through an immune system weakened by mercury in vaccines administered prior to the MMR.

Many have cited the major theme of the Government’s defense in vaccine court was that those who have the temerity to question vaccine safety must be censored and their research stopped rather than risk impairing public confidence in vaccines. According to a growing number of parents, the actual threats involved are:

* companies making vaccines without appropriate safety considerations because they no longer need fear accountability through litigation
* government denials of the autism epidemic that allow an avoidance of funding research into cause and treatment
* a sclerotic medical establishment with its head in the sand as a tsunami of sick children rages overhead.

“The search for truth in autism must be guided by sound science and not be led astray by fear, censorship, and the greed of the pharma-government complex,” commented NAA president Wendy Fournier. “Perhaps the greatest damage done by this GMC hearing, other than a complete waste of time and resources, is the chill wind blown over parents and scientists who dare to ask the hard questions against this and any other medical orthodoxy: why are so many of our kids sick and what can, indeed what must, we do to help them?”

No parents will testify against Wakefield and his colleagues at the GMC hearing. Instead, they have organized a protest coinciding with the start of the hearing. “NAA stands shoulder to shoulder with our British friends in their search for truth, justice, and treatments for their kids,” said Ms. Fournier. “We urge the GMC to stop this persecution and take urgent action in view of a true national health emergency to care for the children afflicted with autism.”

For more information on autism, visit www.nationalautism.org.