Round 20 in the Destroy Andrew Wakefield Campaign

I don't have a ton of time for blogging these days, but someone sent me a question about the latest chapter in the Wakefield Witch Hunt and I found myself writing a response, so I am just going to post it here:

"Subject: Wanting your opinion
Ginger, How do you respond to a radio personality who makes this post:
"When your car is repaired for an oil leak, and the next day the transmission fails, you blame the mechanic. But that deduction fails to consider that the car is old, and of course things will start to go bad. When a child is vaccinated, and later displays signs of autism, you can't say that all vaccines are dangerous. I am pissed that a lie had us focusing so much energy in the wrong direction."

I posted your link there. If you feel like making a comment, the gentleman's name is Chip Franklin. He's conservative ... but thinks anyone who questions the med industry or vaccine safety is nuts.

Thanks for all your links and information you bring to my attention. You are very appreciated !"

Here is how I would answer that.

When your car is repaired for an oil leak, and the next day the transmission fails, you go check to see what exactly is wrong with the transmission. When you find that you can't account for the damage naturally, and it looks man made, then you start checking with other clients of that mechanic. When you find that tens of thousands of his customers came in for oil and left with similar damage, both crippling to the car and vastly expensive if not impossible to fix, and you find out that the mechanic has been charged BILLIONS of dollars in fines internationally for outright fraud and attacking their critics, then you call the authorities and demand that they investigate him. You recommend that they might start by checking to see how often this mechanical failure happens as compared to those who have not brought their car in.

When the authorities REFUSE to investigate, and then you find out that those authorities used to work for the mechanic shop, and than many will work for it again when their job in government is over, then you call the media to investigate.

But when the media won't investigate, but merely takes any claim coming out of that mechanic shop or friends in government at face value, and you find out that the mechanic shop is a HUGE advertiser/client of theirs, and that those few in media who do investigate get punished and learn not to do it any more... THEN you decide the system is just so corrupt that you will never get answers, that the fancy house the mechanic has is likely paid for via taking advantage of the trust of customers and that the transmission problems are probably his fault as your own small investigations are telling you, and you and the other screwed customers make a car club, and learn how to fix each others cars.

And you stop listening to media for info on what is going on, and do your own research.

Don't know Chip, but I would encourage Chip to start by asking himself one question.

How does a "journalist" get copies of confidential childrens medical records?

Because apparently no one has called his attention to the fact that this entire "fraud" case is based on Brian Deer's claim that he has found information in the kids records, which he has has admitted to keeping in his apartment for months, and that no one can confirm most of these accusations because, again, he claims that they came from stolen children's medical records.

From there he can ask why the police are not at Deer's door arresting him. Then on to why the BMJ has published what cannot be confirmed. Then he might question why the "journalist" who first "broke" the story that there were problems with the study in 2004, then became the complainant in the case against him (since no actual patients could be found that would bring a case against Wakefield), then jumped back to becoming a "journalist" and reporting on the case as if he had nothing to do with it, then jumped back into the case, actually harassing parents of the children in question as the demonstrated on Wakefield's behalf at the hearing, then again jumped back to being an oh so objective journalist (by the way writing these stories for a British newspaper run by James Murdoch, board member of GlaxoSmithKline who makes the MMR) and reported on the case again, then again becoming involved in the case with a flurry of personal lawsuits between himself and Dr. Wakefield, then, after the case is settled, comes out with NEW information, that a six year trial in the GMC could not turn up, and prints it as a "journalist".

Then he can ask himself why the BMJ is not chastising him for stealing childrens medical records but actually publishing this? And ask them why they have removed calls from their web site from physicians and parents enraged that he stole childrens medical records and is claiming to publish the information (which again... can't be confirmed by outside sources because it supposedly comes from private medical records of minor children). And he can ask why, instead they actually published this instead of calling for a legal investigation on how Deer got the records he claims to have.

Then he should ask his own community why they are not investigating Brian Deer and why they are not horrified that the guy who brought the charges against Wakefield is posing as a "journalist" and stealing childrens medical records, instead carrying this garbage as if it is the gospel truth.

Then he can look into just who else was involved in the Deer investigation and check out the Pharma research group that "assisted" Deer in his "investigation".

And from there he can research actual vaccine/autism research and see that throwing out this study and saying that the vaccine/autism theory should be thrown out is like carving a pot hole in I-95 and saying the highway from Maine to Florida should be shut down. It is a 13 year old study, what it taught us about autism and vaccines has been at least replicated and at most adopted as standard practice from the medical profession at the behest of the CDC no less.

I have been writing about vaccine autism causation for five years, I never even read the Wakefield paper until last year, in more than a thousand posts I think I have done a few about Wakefield, but not many, and I have never even included this study. I think that the list of studies I point to is in the mid forties at this point. Encourage Chip to check it for himself: No Evidence of Any Link

Vaccine autism causation did not start with Wakefield, it started half a century earlier when Leo Kanner wrote the first paper about this new syndrome that he discovered that would be called "autism" when he noted that one of the first 11 cases ever defined was a regression following a smallpox vaccine. CBS found that our government had been paying autism cases from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program as early as 1991, long before Wakefield ever laid eyes on a patient with autism. This whole thing is a pharma marketing campaign and Chip is unfortunately becoming a willing sucker.

Oh... and my child regressed into autism after his vaccines AND HE NEVER GOT THE MMR.

Saying that this study shuts down vaccine autism causation is like saying that the one study on the dangers of drunk driving is flawed so everyone can go ahead and crank up the party bus!

Please send him this.