Andrew Wakefield
By Elaine Magliaro
It all began in the year 1998 when a British doctor named Andrew Wakefield and eleven other co-authors published a study titled Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children in The Lancet. The study “sparked widespread hysteria” about there being a possible link between the mumps-measles-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Stav Ziv (Newsweek) wrote the following about the study that set the “MMR-autism dominoes tumbling…”: It provided case histories for 12 children, exploring incidences of chronic enterocolitis, inflammatory bowel disease and regressive developmental disorder—as well as immunization with the MMR vaccine. “In eight children, the onset of behavioral problems had been linked, either by the parents or by the child’s physician, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination,” the authors wrote.
In February 2010, Steve Novella (Science-Based Medicine) wrote that the study had not stood the test of time. Novella said that the results couldn’t be replicated by other labs. He said that a decade of subsequent research had “sufficiently cleared the MMR vaccine of any connection to ASD.” Novella added that the lab that had been used “to search for measles virus in the guts of the study subjects” had “been shown to have used flawed techniques, resulting in false positives.” There reportedly did not “appear to be any association between autism and a GI disorder.” The Lancet has retracted Wakefield’s paper.
Julia Belluz (Vox) said that investigators described Dr. Wakefiled’s research as an “elaborate fraud.” Wakefield was stripped of his medical license. In January of 2011, CNN reported that an investigation that was published by the British medical journal BMJ had concluded that Dr. Wakefield had “misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study — and that there was ‘no doubt’ Wakefield was responsible.”
Fiona Godlee, the editor-in-chief of BJM, told CNN, “It’s one thing to have a bad study, a study full of error, and for the authors then to admit that they made errors. But in this case, we have a very different picture of what seems to be a deliberate attempt to create an impression that there was a link by falsifying the data.”
As Novella noted in his article—“it’s OK to be wrong in science.” He said, “There is no expectation that every potential finding will turn out to be true – in fact it is expected that most new findings will eventually be found to be false. That’s the nature of investigating the unknown. No harm no foul.” It appears, however, that there WAS “foul” play on the part of Wakefield.
An investigation conducted by the General Medical Council concluded that the British doctor had acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in doing his research. It appears, too, that his fraudulent research may have caused harm to thousands of children and to the public health in his country and other countries—including the United States—because some parents aren’t having/haven’t had their children inoculated with the MMR vaccine for fear that their children might get autism.
Belluz provided some information about Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his retracted study in her Vox aticle:
- To begin with, Wakefield’s association between the MMR vaccine and autism was based on a case report involving only 12 children. “Case reports” are detailed stories about particular patients’ medical histories. And — because they are basically just stories — they are considered among weakest kinds of medical studies.
- A British investigative journalist, Brian Deer, followed up with the families of each of the 12 kids in the study. He concluded, “No case was free of misreporting or alteration.” In other words, Andrew Wakefield, lead author of the original report, manipulated his data.
In The British Medical Journal, Deer spells out exactly what he found, and it’s rather shocking that this study was ever published in the first place. You learn that the parents of many of the kids deny the conclusions in the study; some of the kids who Wakefield suggested were diagnosed with autism actually weren’t; others who Wakefield suggested were “previously normal” actually had pre-existing developmental issues before getting their shots.
- Even more absurdly, when the General Medical Council (the UK’s medical regulator) began to investigate Wakefield, they found that he had paid children at his son’s 10th birthday party to donate their blood for his research. That isn’t exactly a controlled and ethical setting.
- Wakefield also had financial conflicts of interest. Among them, while he was discrediting the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, and suggesting parents should give their children single shots over a longer period of time, he was conveniently filing patents for single-disease vaccines.
5. Wakefield has refused to replicate the paper’s findings
Belluz noted that public-health experts have said “that Wakefield’s false data and erroneous conclusions, while resoundingly rejected in the academic world, still drive some parents’ current worries about the MMR shot.”
In a Newsweek article published yesterday, Stav Ziv said that Andrew Wakefield is a man who “is both revered and reviled.” He added, “To a small group of parents, he’s a hero who won’t back down from his assertion that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine can cause autism.” Ziv said that Wakefield “dismisses the notion that he bears any responsibility” for the current Measles outbreak. Wakefield said, “The people who put the blame on me are really just displacing their inadequacy on others.” Ziv said Wakefield pointed out “that his now infamous study never asserted a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism.” Wakefield added, “We merely reported the parent’s description of what happened to their children, and the clinical findings. We made no claims about the vaccine causing autism. In fact, we said this does not prove an association. And all we urged was further research.” The authors of the paper wrote at the time, “We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described.”
Ziv:
However, during a press conference two days before the paper’s publication, Wakefield was already pushing for the use of separate vaccines over the combined MMR. “With the debate over MMR that has started,” he said then, “I cannot support the continued use of the three vaccines given together. We need to know what the role of gut inflammation is in autism…. My concerns are that one more case of this is too many.” Asked recently whether he still believes the MMR vaccine causes autism, Wakefield responded unequivocally. “Yes, I do. I think MMR contributes to the current autism epidemic.”
For years, Wakefield has repeatedly stated his opinion that the risk lies with the MMR vaccine—not single vaccines. “MMR does not protect against measles,” he says. “Measles vaccine protects against measles.” He argues that the reason we are seeing more cases is because the U.K. and U.S. governments took the single vaccines off the market, leaving the MMR as the only option—and that, increasingly, parents reject that option.
**********
Do you think that Anrew Wakefield bears any responsibility for the current outbreak of Measles in this country? Do you think he is right about the MMR vaccine and autism?
SOURCES
MMR Vaccine & Autism (American Academy of Pediatrics)
Retracted autism study an ‘elaborate fraud,’ British journal finds (CNN)
The Lancet retracts Andrew Wakefield’s article (Science-Based Medicine)
The research linking autism to vaccines is even more bogus than you think (Vox)
Andrew Wakefield, Father of the Anti-Vaccine Movement, Responds to the Current
Measles Outbreak for the First Time (Newsweek)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
Test
It worked!
I don’t understand why Wakefield is available to speak to the press. Why is he not in prison?
Why is anyone asking his opinion, or printing it?
Yes, he does bear responsibility for the current outbreak of measles.
But he merely provided willfully stupid people with an excuse to crusade against vaccinations.
What he says about MMR and autism is wrong. Whether a man of his integrity really believes that, is unknowable. He’s a liar.
At least he lost his medical license.
I dislike being so demure, but I hesitate to say how I really feel about this fraud.
You’ll need to read between the lines.
First, do no harm.
Seems simple enough an axiom to follow.
One dirty Doc!
Measles Diagnoses Rise To 11 In Illinois
Posted: 02/12/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/12/measles-outbreak-illinois_n_6669786.html?cps=gravity_2429_7310930188324487075
The Disneyland measles outbreak and the disgraced doctor who whipped up vaccination fear
1/23/15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/01/23/the-disneyland-measles-outbreak-and-the-disgraced-doctor-who-whipped-up-fear-about-vaccinations/
Excerpt:
Just before 7 p.m. last Thursday, as the Disneyland measles outbreak was emerging, the Los Angeles Times published an outraged editorial. It didn’t blame Disneyland, where the outbreak originated before going on to infect 70 people across six states. Nor did it blame any public agency. Instead, it took aim at a buoyant movement that won’t “get over its ignorant and self-absorbed rejection of science.”
The faction was the anti-vaccine movement — its holy text a retracted medical study, its high priest a disgraced British doctor named Andrew Wakefield. “The prospect of a new measles epidemic is disturbing,” the editorial said. “So is the knowledge that many ill-informed people accept a thoroughly discredited and retracted study in the journal Lancet that purported to associate vaccination with autism.”
Officials from Mexico to California are now scrambling to contain an outbreak that began at Disneyland but has now spilled across state lines, infecting dozens, many of whom never received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR).
If the outbreak proves anything, it’s Wakefield’s enduring legacy. Even years after he lost his medical license, years after he was shown to have committed numerous ethical violations, and years after the retraction of a medical paper that alleged a vaccine-autism link, his message resonates. Facebook is populated by pages like “Dr. Wakefield’s Work Must Continue.” There’s the Web site called “We Support Andrew Wakefield,” which peddles the Wakefieldian doctrine. And thousands sign petitions pledging support.
I’ll take the questions in reverse order ….
Do you think [Wakefield] is right about the MMR vaccine and autism? I won’t say it is impossible that there is a connection, since I do not have the background to be able to assess evidence that says otherwise. But it does seem improbable given the description of his methods the “evidence” he found, and his profit motive for the conclusion.
Do you think that Anrew Wakefield bears any responsibility for the current outbreak of Measles in this country? Yes, indirectly. Others also indirectly responsbile include the 11 other co-authors of the paper, the Lancet for publishing that dreck, the media who stoked “wide-spread hysteria” to sell more copy … the list goes on and on.
Blame the anti-vaccine hysteria on this guy
2/3/15
http://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-andrew-wakefield-2015-2
Excerpt:
Wakefield himself repeatedly declined to try to replicate his own findings, a process that is normally standard procedure to verify that the results of a single study, especially such a small and uncontrolled one, are not a fluke.
In 2010, after a thorough investigation that revealed not only bad science but also financial conflicts of interest, the original Lancet paper was retracted by the journal. “Part of the costs of Dr. Wakefield’s research were paid by lawyers for parents seeking to sue vaccine makers for damages,” Gardiner Harris wrote in the New York Times, in an article explaining the retraction. “Dr. Wakefield was also found to have patented in 1997 a measles vaccine that would succeed if the combined vaccine were withdrawn or discredited.”
What’s more, an investigation by the journalist Brian Deer found that “not one of the 12 cases reported in the 1998 Lancet paper was free of misrepresentation or undisclosed alteration.”
“The data clearly appeared to be distorted,” one source, the father of a boy in the study, told Deer.
By 2011, the editors of the BMJ, a prominent medical journal, were calling the study “fraudulent” and Wakefield had been stripped of his medical license.
But by that time, the damage was already well underway. MMR vaccination rates across Britain, Ireland, the US, and other countries declined as parents learned of Wakefield’s theory, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. And a 2002 UK survey found that “nearly 50% of doctors reported parents were less willing to allow medical professionals to give vaccinations to their children,” the Washington Post noted.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/912252-whistleblower-reveals-cdc-knowingly-put-children-at-risk-of-autism-media-remains-silent/?photo=2
“Oh my God, I did not believe that we did what we did, but we did. It’s all there… This is the lowest point in my career, that I went along with that paper. I have great shame now when I meet families of kids with autism, because I have been part of the problem.”—CDC Whistleblower Dr. William W. Thompson, in a recorded interview with Dr. Brian Hooker.
On Aug. 19 came a bombshell revelation charging an intentional fraud at the Centers for Disease Control has put black children at greater risk of developing autism. A week has passed, and the media can’t seem to decide what to do with the story.
The advocacy group Focus Autism published on its website on Aug. 19 a press release that explained that a whistleblower inside the CDC, Dr. William W. Thompson, had helped Dr. Brian Hooker discover that a bedrock paper proving that vaccines don’t cause autism was based on fraudulent data.
The website also published a video (credited to the Autism Media Channel) documenting the amazing tale of a guilt-wracked government scientist (Thompson) and the father of an autistic child who happened to have a PhD in chemical engineering (Hooker), searching for the truth about his son’s disease.
Hooker had been examining data sets for years, trying to discover the true cause or causes of his son’s severe autism, which is a blanket term for neurological impairment.
Autism rates began rapidly rising in the 1990s (according to the CDC, in 2014 1 in 68 children in the United States has autism. In the 1970s and 1980s, the rate was 1 in 2000), and some researchers and parents of autistic children began speculating that rounds of vaccines, especially in combination, were responsible.
One day Hooker got a phone call. Thompson reached out to him—Hooker says Thompson appointed Hooker as his “priest”—and began providing clues to guide Hooker’s research.
The Focus Autism release explains how Hooker, making use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as well as a Congressional request, finally found the bombshell Thompson had wanted him to find. Upon reexamining a study published in 2004 that the CDC had used to establish the safety of the MMR vaccine, which is given to babies to inoculate them against measles, mumps, and rubella, Hooker discovered: “African American boys receiving their first MMR vaccine before 36 months of age were 3.4 (or around 236 percent) times more likely to develop autism vs. after 36 months.”
Using the original data sets of the 2004 study, Hooker published a peer-reviewed paper showing the results of the research. [UPDATE on Aug. 31: Hooker’s article was unpublished by the journal Translational Neurodegneration, and an undated notice was posted in its place. The notice says, in part, “This article has been removed from the public domain because of serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions.”]
According to Hooker, the data set for the paper was altered. Data was initially gathered on 2,583 children. When the evidence pointed to a strong link between MMR and autism, the researchers found a way to cut the study group, almost in half.
They excluded any children that did not have a valid State of Georgia Birth Certificate, which reduced the cohort by 41 percent and greatly diluted the significance of the original correlation.
The resulting paper, commonly known as the DeStefano et. al. study, was published in the journal Pediatics in 2004. “[It] is widely used by the CDC and other public health organizations to support a claim that there is no link between vaccines and autism,” says the Focus Autism press release.
The study answered a purpose. In the video, Thompson complains that higher-ups wanted certain results, and he went along.
Individuals like Hooker, who had been investigating a possible link between vaccines and his son’s autism, are dismissed by the medical establishment as “anti-vaxxers” and considered a threat to public health.
Leaking Out
The story released by Focus Autism started to spread in alternative health media, like Mike Adams’ “Natural News,” and Jon Rappoport’s “NoMoreFakeNews,” which reported on Friday that Dr. Thompson had been “escorted out” of the CDC building.
Everything was quiet in the big media outlets on Thursday, but outraged parents began calling the CDC demanding answers.
On Friday, a woman in Atlanta who goes by “Bobby Dee” online and doesn’t want her real name revealed, heard about the video on Facebook, and decided to write an iReport story for CNN.
“I wrote it, I set it loose, and it started going crazy,” she told Epoch Times. Her story stayed up at CNN for 19 hours, during which time it began to go viral. It had 56,512 views, 235 comments, and 33,000 shares when CNN inexplicably pulled it. Gone.
The comments were mostly parents of afflicted children literally begging CNN to investigate, to cover this important story. Then there was a “troll”—a de-moralizer whose comments spread the official view on the safety of vaccines, over and over.
Dee was contacted by a producer at CNN, who asked her a list of questions about who she was and how she knew what she knew. Dee, wanting CNN to run with the story, provided phone numbers for the all the main sources in the story.
The producer promised it would go back up “if CNN could verify it.” The strange thing about that though, is that “iReport” is a page that states in its guidelines that contributors are on their own—rather like Facebook—and CNN is not responsible for content, and does not vet content.
The producer claimed the reason this story was receiving exceptional treatment was that it had gone “viral-ish,” so CNN needed to check it out.
Meanwhile, absurdly, Dee herself (out-doing “the most trusted name in news”) had already verified Dr. Thompson’s identity, by emailing him at CDC and getting a response.
“Thank you for your kind words,” Dr. Thompson wrote.
Epoch Times has learned that on Sunday, Aug. 25 some parents began receiving an emailed statement from the CDC reviewing the handling of the data in Destafano et. al. study. The statement stands behind that study’s conclusion: “Additional studies and a more recent rigorous review by the Institute of Medicine have found that MMR vaccine does not increase the risk of autism.”
The statement is published on the CDC’s website with a note that it was updated on Aug. 25. Calls to the CDC on Aug. 26 asking for comment have not yet been returned.
Also on Aug. 25, a second story was posted at CNN’s “iReport,” and this time, it went down after two hours. A third story was taken down in minutes, and outrage at CNN’s behavior exploded across the social media.
On Aug. 25, midday, CNN put two of the three stories back online, but with tags saying CNN had not vetted them. Epoch Times’ calls to CNN were not returned at press time.
CNN is carrying a story on an unofficial part of its site that it has so far chosen not to cover on its own.
A google search early on the morning of Aug. 26 does not show any other mainstream media outlet has picked the story up.
Meanwhile, the latest word from an individual in a position to know is that Dr. Thompson has “lawyered up,” and is seeking official whistleblower status, so that he can talk freely about what he knows.
Celia Farber writes and lives in New York City.
Correction: The percentage likelihood of African-American boys developing autism if the receive the MMR vaccine in the first 36 months was corrected to around 236 percent. The CDC’s statement responding to the charges made by Hooker and Thompson was added to the article around 12:45 p.m. ET on Aug. 26.
the headline is referring to one person, not two. The former head of the CDC and the current Merck President are one and the same person. Merck is the maker of the MMR vaccine.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1164827
Former CDC Head and Current Merck President Caught in Fraud Scandal
By LoneStar11 | Posted August 25, 2014 | Atlanta, Georgia
There has been a shocking new development in the ongoing story of scientific fraud at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A letter was released, purportedly by CDC whistleblower Dr. William Thompson, which shows that Dr. Julie Gerberding, former head of the CDC and current president of pharmaceutical giant Merck, was made aware of “problematic” findings in a study meant to investigate a potential link between the timing of the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine in children and later onset of autism.
In the correspondence, dated February 2, 2004, Thompson refers to “statistical associations between the receipt of MMR vaccine and autism” and appeals to his boss to appropriately respond to a Congressman’s private allegations of impropriety within the agency’s National Immunization Program.
The date of the letter is significant in that, just one week later, Thompson was scheduled to present his findings at a public meeting on vaccine safety. When Gerberding learned of the disturbing findings, specifically that an on-time MMR vaccine is associated with a 336% higher risk of autism in African-American boys, the whistleblower claims an orchestrated suppression of data was performed.
http://vaccineimpact.com/2015/dr-rowen-measles-spread-by-those-vaccinated/
Measles Spread by the Vaccinated: Vaccines may be a Greater Danger than You Ever Knew!
by Dr. Robert Rowen
Excerpts:
Worried about measles? If you are vaccinated, you should be. If you are my age, and were lucky enough to get wild measles, you needn’t worry at all.
Measles has been quite stubborn to be wiped out. In China, in one province, 99% of children are vaccinated but measles runs strong.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Clearly measles vaccine doesn’t work as advertised. In fact, in our own country, outbreak after outbreak has occurred in what has been called a fully vaccinated population. (See: A measles outbreak at a college with a prematriculation immunization requirement. Am J Public Health. 1991 Mar ;81(3):360-4. PMID:1994745.)
I wrote long ago that we are setting up the younger generation for a potential calamity. See, vaccines give you plastic immunity. They build up only one line of your immune system, the antibody system, and put the main immune system (cellular immunity) to sleep. You need both for fully developed immunity.
Vaccine immunity has been shown to wane with time. And sadly, current measles outbreaks are being blamed on parents who refuse to give immune damaging vaccines to their children, when Chinese and American data shows otherwise.
You won’t hear the latter in the news though, but I will tell you! If I had a school age child now, I’d rush him over to the house with measles (or chicken pox, etc.) to play games there. When my child would get measles, I’d give plenty of vitamin A and also ozone therapy. I’d run the virus out in about half the time or less (by experience with other viruses).
Measles should be feared to some extent. It is REAL hard if an original infection in adults. And, even children will rarely have a bad complication. The death rate is 1-2 in 100,000 cases. But I’d bet I could cut that by 95% with oxidation and vitamin A (in an African outbreak, where up to 80% of complications were reduced with A: Am J Clin Nutr. 1991 Nov;54(5):890-5.). Now I agree that I would not want to be in the 1 in 100,000 group that could have a lethal complication. But is the vaccination worth it with that small risk?
We have a generation of immune cripples amongst our youth. Asthma, eczema, and other immune diseases are rampant. Autism has exploded. These conditions are reaching crisis.
I was blessed to have had measles, chicken pox, rubella, mumps and more. Research is showing that if we live in a sterile environment, our immune systems become weak. While there is a small risk of complications from childhood diseases (which risk, in my opinion likely could be nearly eliminated by oxidation therapies) there could be a far, far greater risk of permanent immune dysfunction, and even cancer, which the pundits will never look for, or even be able to trace back to the source. Even horrific polio complications were mitigated 3 generations ago by ozone’s sister therapy, ultraviolet blood irradiation therapy and intravenous vitamin C.
I don’t agree with the forced vaccine program. Herd immunity is now shown to be a failure. Plastic vaccine immunity wanes with time, rendering possibly a whole generation of vaccine-abused people vulnerable to diseases their bodies might have difficulty handling as adults, while deranging their immune systems for life. Please look to vaccine failure BEFORE condemning moms who rightfully don’t want to place their precious children in harm’s way with Pharma’s now discredited potions.
If vaccines were the cat’s meow, why would the American government have granted vaccine makers total immunity from liability if the vaccine harms your child or you? (On a personal note, I believe this is a violation of your God given Rights.) Something smells rancid here. I do therapies that don’t hurt people, but you don’t see government granting me immunity from negligence, like it has for Pharma.
Read the Full Article on Dr. Rowen’s Facebook page.
About the Author
Dr. Rowen graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University (1971), followed by medical school at the University of California at San Francisco San Francisco (1975). He has been board certified and recertified by the American Boards of Family Practice and Emergency Medicine. He also served on the Alaska State Medical Board. Dr. Rowen is affectionately known as “The Father of Medical Freedom” for pioneering the nation’s first law protecting alternative medicine in 1990, in Alaska.
Wakefield is the easy target and I think y’all have had a big drink of the MSM/corporate koolaid.
Part 1. http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/vaccinated-spreading-measles-who-merck-cdc-documents-confirms
Friday, January 30th 2015 at 11:45 am
Written By:
Sayer Ji, Founder
The Vaccinated Spreading Measles: WHO, Merck, CDC Documents Confirm
20 years ago, the MMR vaccine was found to infect virtually all of its recipients with measles. The manufacturer Merck’s own product warning links MMR to a potentially fatal form of brain inflammation caused by measles. Why is this evidence not being reported?
The Vaccinated Spreading Measles
The phenomenon of measles infection spread by MMR (live measles-mumps-rubella vaccine) has been known for decades. In fact, 20 years ago, scientists working at the CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, funded by the WHO and the National Vaccine Program, discovered something truly disturbing about the MMR vaccine: it leads to detectable measles infection in the vast majority of those who receive it.
Published in 1995 in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and titled, “Detection of Measles Virus RNA i Urine Specimens from Vaccine Recipients,” researchers analyzed urine samples from newly MMR vaccinated 15-month-old children and young adults and reported their eye-opening results as following:
Measles virus RNA was detected in 10 of 12 children during the 2-week sampling period.
In some cases, measles virus RNA was detected as early as 1 day or as late as 14 days after the children were vaccinated.
Measles virus RNA was also detected in the urine samples from all four of the young adults between 1 and 13 days after vaccination.
The authors of this study used a relatively new technology at that time, namely, reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), which they believed could help resolve growing challenges associated with measles detection in the shifting post-mass immunization epidemiological and clinical landscape. These challenges include:
A changing clinical presentation towards ‘milder’ or asymptomatic measles in previously vaccinated individuals.
A changing epidemiological distribution of measles (a shift toward children younger than 15 months, teenagers, and young adults)
Increasing difficulty distinguishing measles-like symptoms (exanthema) caused by a range of other pathogens from those caused by measles virus.
An increase in sporadic measles outbreaks in previously vaccinated individuals.
Twenty years later, PCR testing is widely acknowledged as highly sensitive and specific, and the only efficient way to distinguish vaccine-strain and wild-type measles infection, as their clinical presentation are indistinguishable.
Did the CDC Use PCR Testing On The Disneyland Measles Cases?
The latest measles outbreak at Disney is a perfect example of where PCR testing could be used to ascertain the true origins of the outbreak. The a priori assumption that the non-vaccinated are carriers and transmitters of a disease the vaccinated are immune to has not been scientifically validated. Since vaccine strain measles has almost entirely supplanted wild-type, communally acquired measles, it is statistically unlikely that PCR tests will reveal the media’s hysterical storyline — “non-vaxxers brought back an eradicated disease!” — to be true. Until such studies are performed and exposed, we will never know for certain.
Laura Hayes, of Age of Autism, recently addressed this key question in her insightful article “Disney, Measles, and the Fantasyland of Vaccine Perfection”:
“Has there been any laboratory confirmation of even one case of the supposed measles related to Disneyland? If yes, was the confirmed case tested to determine whether it was wild-type measles or vaccine-strain measles? If not, why not? These are important questions to ask. Is it measles or not? If yes, what kind, because if it’s vaccine-strain measles, then that means it is the vaccinated who are contagious and spreading measles resulting in what the media likes to label “outbreaks” to create panic (a panic more appropriately triggered by our 25 year history of epidemic autism).
It would be what one might call vaccine fallout. People who receive live-virus vaccines, such as the MMR, can then shed that live virus, for up to many weeks and can infect others. Other live-virus vaccines include the nasal flu vaccine, shingles vaccine, rotavirus vaccine, chicken pox vaccine, and yellow fever vaccine.”
Additional Evidence That the Vaccinated Are Not Immune, Spread Disease
The National Vaccine Information Center has published an important document relevant to this topic titled “The Emerging Risks of Live Virus & Virsus Vectored Vaccines: Vaccine Strain Virus Infection Shedding & Transmission.” Pages 34-36 in the section on “Measles, Mumps, Rubella Viruses and Live Attenuated Measles, Mumps, Rubella Viruses” discuss evidence that the MMR vaccine can lead to measles infection and transmission.
Cases highlighted include:
In 2010, Eurosurveillance published a report about excretion of vaccine strain measles virus in urine and pharyngeal secretions of a Croatian child with vaccine-associated rash illness.[1] A healthy 14-month old child was given MMR vaccine and eight days later developed macular rash and fever. Lab testing of throat and urine samples between two and four weeks after vaccination tested positive for vaccine strain measles virus. Authors of the report pointed out that when children experience a fever and rash after MMR vaccination, only molecular lab testing can determine whether the symptoms are due to vaccine strain measles virus infection. They stated: “According to WHO guidelines for measles and rubella elimination, routine discrimination between aetiologies of febrile rash disease is done by virus detection. However, in a patient recently MMR-vaccinated, only molecular techniques can differentiate between wild type measles or rubella infection or vaccine-associated disease. This case report demonstrates that excretion of Schwartz measles virus occurs in vaccinees.”
In 2012, Pediatric Child Health published a report describing a healthy 15-month old child in Canada, who developed irritability, fever, cough, conjunctivitis and rash within seven days of an MMR shot.[2] Blood, urine and throat swab tests were positive for vaccine strain measles virus infection 12 days after vaccination. Addressing the potential for measles vaccine strain virus transmission to others, the authors stated, “While the attenuated virus can be detected in clinical specimens following immunization, it is understood that administration of the MMR vaccine to immunocompetent individuals does not carry the risk of secondary transmission to susceptible hosts.
In 2013, Eurosurveillance published a report of vaccine strain measles occurring weeks after MMR vaccination in Canada. Authors stated, “We describe a case of measlesmumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine-associated measles illness that was positive by both PCR and IgM, five weeks after administration of the MMR vaccine.” The case involved a two-year-old child, who developed runny nose, fever, cough, macular rash and conjunctivitis after vaccination and tested positive for vaccine strain measles virus infection in throat swab and blood tests.[3] Canadian health officials authoring the report raised the question of whether there are unidentified cases of vaccine strain measles infections and the need to know more about how long measles vaccine strain shedding lasts. They concluded that the case they reported “likely represents the existence of additional, but unidentified, exceptions to the typical timeframe for measles vaccine virus shedding and illness.” They added that “further investigation is needed on the upper limit of measles vaccine virus shedding based on increased sensitivity of the RT-PCR-based detection technologies and immunological factors associated with vaccine-associated measles illness and virus shedding.”
BK,
That is an anti-vax conspiracy theory site you linked to. There are always opportunists, even with degrees, who either buy into CT, or find they can make a buck doing it.
As for the “esteemed” Dr. Rowen, this tidbit is from Quackwatch:
part 2. Parts 1 and 2 in the original article have hot links to references.
The Vaccinated Spreading Measles: WHO, Merck, CDC Documents Confirm
In addition to this evidence for the disease-promoting nature of the measles vaccine, we recently reported on a case of a twice vaccinated adult in NYC becoming infected with measles and tehn spreading it to two secondary contacts, both of which were vaccinated twice and found to have presumably protective IgM antibodies.
This double failure of the MMR vaccine renders highly suspicious the unsubstantiated claims that when an outbreak of measles occurs the non- or minimally vaccinated are responsible. The assumption that vaccination equals bona fide immunity has never been supported by the evidence itself. We have previously reported on a growing body of evidence that even when a vaccine is mandated, and 99% of a population receive the measles vaccines, outbreaks not only happen, but as compliance increases vaccine resistance sporadic outbreaks also increase — a clear indication of vaccine failure.
There is also the concerning fact that according to the MMR vaccine’s manufacturer Merck’s own product insert, the MMR can cause measles inclusion body encephalitis (MIBE), a rare but potentially lethal form of brain infection with measles. For more information you can review a case report on MIBE caused by vaccine strain measles published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases in 1999 titled “Measles inclusion-body encephalitis caused by the vaccine strain of measles virus.”
Global Measles Vaccine Failures Increasingly Reported
China is not the only country dealing with outbreaks in near universally vaccinated populations. Between 2008-2011, France reported over 20,000 cases of measles, with adolescents and young adults accounting for more than half of cases.[4] Remarkably, these outbreaks began when France was experiencing some of their highest coverage rates in history. For instance, in 2008, the MMR1 coverage reached 96.6% in children 11 years of age. For a more extensive review of measles outbreaks in vaccinated populations read our article The 2013 Measles Outbreak: A failing Vaccine, Not a Failure to Vaccinate.
Given that clinical evidence, case reports, epidemiological studies, and even the vaccine manufacturer’s own product warnings, all show directly or indirectly that MMR can spread measles infection, how can we continue to stand by and let the media, government and medical establishment blame the non-vaccinated on these outbreaks without any concrete evidence?
Our Story So Far: Both MMR & Mercury-Laced Vaccines Cause Autism
Breaking newsBy Dan Olmsted
Quite a week, I think you’d have to agree. William Thompson, the whistleblower first heard on a taped phone call with Brian Hooker last week, has now come forward, confirming his role in covering up evidence that black males may be particularly vulnerable to autism from the on-time MMR shot. Rather than follow up on that clue from a susceptibility group – a clue that could unravel the CDC’s whole argument that vaccines never, ever cause autism – the CDC researchers buried it.
What’s more, he’s also on tape saying another study he was lead researcher on sends an ominous signal that the mercury-containing flu shot for pregnant woman can cause autism. The study found a higher risk of tics, and children with autism have four times the rate of tics as other children.
Meanwhile, Thompson says on the tape and doesn’t take back in his statement, “I can say confidently I do think thimerosal causes tics. So I don’t know why they still give it to pregnant women. Like, that’s the last person I would give mercury to. Thimerosal from vaccines causes tics. You start a campaign and make it your mantra.
“Do you think a pregnant mother would want to take a vaccine that they knew caused tics? Absolutely not. I would never give my wife a vaccine that I thought caused tics. I can say, tics are four times more prevalent in kids with autism. There is biological plausibility right now to say that thimerosal causes autism-like features.”
Interesting what a strong echo this is from the Simpsonwood transcript, June 7, 2000: “Forgive this personal comment, but I got called out at eight o’clock for an emergency call and my daughter-in-law delivered a son by C-section. Our first male in the line of the next generation and I do not want that grandson to get a Thimerosal containing vaccine until we know better what is going on. It will probably take a long time. In the meantime, and I know there are probably implications for this internationally, but in the meanwhile I think I want that grandson to only be given Thimerosal-free vaccines.” – Dr. Robert Johnson, Immunologist, University of Colorado, Simpsonwood, Ga.
So while the rest of us suckers shoot our kids and ourselves up with autism-causing vaccinations, the smart set – namely, epidemiologists and immunologists whom we pay to figure these things out – look at the data and say, no way you’re giving that to my wife and grandson!
Of course, tell that to your pediatrician and he’ll tell you there’s no evidence for that. There’s no evidence because the evidence has been suppressed, and now it’s being unsuppressed.
As of today, August 28, 2014, it’s quite clear that flu shots with mercury should be yanked off the market, and not just for pregnant women and infants (Thompson seemed not to know that they, too, get mercury-laced flu shots). Mercury-containing shots, including those promoted in third-world countries by hapless do-good-look-at-me-I’m-a-hero groups like the Gates Foundation, should be gathered up and disposed of by people in hazmat suits.
And the MMR should be moved to 36 months for any and all. Given that we now see it is capable of causing autism but don’t know exactly why (it’s probably viral interference at too young an age, but is the interference driven by the neurotoxic measles vaccine or the mutated and ineffective mumps portion, the subject of another whistleblower complaint?), it should be broken back into three parts and given with wide separation.
And the flawed and offensive Pediatrics article giving the MMR a clean bill of health at 12 months should be retracted.
Speaking of offensive, when you dig down into the tics issue, you find a CDC official saying parents don’t know what the hell tics are! The way CDC bigwig Dr. Ed Trevathan tortures the data reminds me of Dick Cheney torturing the poor CIA officers into confessing there might be some chance that Iraq had WMD’s and al Qaeda affiliates meeting in every Moose Lodge in Iraq on Tuesday evenings.
This narrative was supplied by Brian Hooker:
The CDC whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson has stated directly,
“Thimerosal from vaccines causes tics. You start a campaign and make that your manta.”
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has tried very hard internally to cover up this link. In 2009, Dr. Thompson completed a study with Dr. John Barile on this very subject.
Accordingly, they found a relationship between levels of thimerosal exposure in infants between 0 and 7 months of age and motor and phonic tics, specifically in boys.
An association was also seen in girls exposed to thimerosal prenatally. The original manuscript put forward internally in the CDC by Barile and Thompson stated the following regarding thimerosal and tics:
“In light of these findings, the researchers conclude that greater exposure to thimerosal from vaccines is potentially associated with an increased risk for the presence of tics in boys between the ages of seven to ten.”
And
“The study also found that for girls, higher prenatal exposure to thimerosal was associated with higher tic counts during the assessment period…”
However, when this publication was submitted for clearance through the CDC’s clearance process, the entire manuscript was rejected due to these admissions that thimerosal exposure causes tics. In fact, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the time, Dr. Ed Trevathan, in an April 25, 2009 email, recommended that the manuscript not be published. SEE HERE.
Instead, top CDC officials recruited an additional author, Dr. Jonathan Mink, a tic expert from University of Rochester Medical Center who was paid by the CDC to state as the paper’s primary conclusion instead,
“This finding [regarding tics] should be interpreted with caution due to limitations in the measurement of tics and the limited biological plausibility regarding a causal relationship.”
This is despite the fact that three earlier CDC publications (Verstraeten et al. 2003, Andrews et al. 2004 and Thompson et al. 2007) had also reported an association between thimerosal exposure early in life and tics. Thompson himself reported that he was under tremendous pressure to absolve thimerosal at all costs and run and rerun the analyses to remove the association between thimerosal exposure and tics.
Consequently, when the severely compromised manuscript was submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine for consideration for publication, it was soundly rejected with the following comments from the peer reviewers:
Reviewer 1: In this paper, the authors seem to be hoping for and wanting to demonstrate lack of relationships. When a relationship does emerge, the authors essentially downplay it, even though…a) The authors argue for how strong the dataset is earlier in the paper and b) the authors explain why SEM is superior to alternative analytic techniques.
Reviewer 2: The authors’ conclusion that “thimerosal is not a major causal agent for tic disorders (p. 13),” is not in accordance with their own data. That is, it is not reasonable, on the one hand, to argue that the use of SEM reduces the probability of Type I error, and then, on the other hand, to ignore the one significant, positive finding because of “the lack of biological plausibility of such a relationship.”
Reviewer 3: In general, the arguments presented on page 13 that findings on the tic outcome variable were not seen as sufficiently persuasive to completely dismiss those findings. Only one citation is provided. Further, in the absence of complete heritability, evidence of heritability does not (as the authors seem to suggest), rule out gene-by-environment interactions or even direct environmental effects…If the authors are to convince skeptical professionals, parents, or public policy-makers of their point, they would be well-advised to address the purported mechanisms of effect that have been proposed.
The manuscript was then submitted to and rejected by the Journal of the American Medical Association before it was finally picked up by the Journal of Pediatrics Psychology and was published in 2012.
In 2009, the CDC also commissioned a study in Italy by Dr. Alberto Tozzi, of Bambino Gesu` Hospital, Rome, Italy, in part to counter the many other CDC publications that report a relationship between thimerosal and tics. Within the publication released from this study, which appeared in the journal Pediatrics, it was stated,
“We failed to observe any association with tics, in contrast to the findings of some observational studies.”
Although the CDC has gone on to herald this study as “proof” that thimerosal does not cause tics, independent reevaluation of the data in the Italian study show statistically significant relationships between thimerosal exposure and both motor and phonic tics for all children and girls and a statistically significant relationship between thimerosal exposure and phonic tics for boys. Thompson himself has expressed extreme doubt regarding the veracity of the Tozzi et al. study’s claims and encouraged Dr. Brian Hooker to have the data reanalyzed. This reanalysis makes clear, the study authors’ data is counter to their own claims that thimerosal does not cause tics.
With this revelation, now all 5 CDC studies that considered tics as a consequence to thimerosal exposure show strong, statistically significant relationships despite CDC’s current claims that,
“There is no convincing evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.”
It should be noted that the presence of tics is four times more prevalent in children with autism than in the general population. Thus, Dr. Thompson himself has argued that,
“There is a biological plausibility right now to say that thimerosal causes autism-like features.”
—
Bettykath,
I have no great love for Big Pharma. That’s why I posted John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight video on the subject of pharmaceutical companies’ methods of marketing to doctors. That said, Andrew Wakefield deserves to have a critical spotlight shining on him for what he has done. Why has he refused to replicate his study? Did/does he have a financial motive for trying to prove there is a MMR vaccine link to autism. Do you think his is a voice to be trusted?
BK,
Vaccines no longer contain Thimerosal. None. The stuff was used for multi-dose vials because it inhibits the growth of bacteria and fungus, and was used for decades with no findings that it causes any kind of neurological or psychiatric disorder. See this link showing search results for Thimerosal on Quackwatch:
http://www.quackwatch.com/search/webglimpse.cgi?ID=1&query=Thimerosal
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), thimerosal is still being put into flu shot vaccines for the 2014-2015 year. http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/thimerosal.htm
If it was so safe for everyone including babies, then why did they remove it?
Quackwatch is a hugely biased site, that speaks out against anyone that questions medical authority and especially the use of drugs and vaccines.
You should always question authority, especially when it’s backed by drug money or has set itself up as an “expert” source without much validity.
Quackwatch is indeed biased. It’s biased against quacks, charlatans, witch-doctors, pseudoscientists, and purveyors of woo.
bk,
I can’t find anyone at the University of Colorado known as, “Dr. Robert Johnson, Immunologist.”
Can you?
bk,
The causes of autism are unknown. No one can prove that the MMR vaccine, or thimerosal, causes autism.
There is zero proof, despite what Wakefield and other quacks say.
Do you have clinical evidence for any of this?
That’s a rhetorical question, because I know that you don’t.
No one does. It’s made up.
“……then why did they remove it?”
*****************************************************
Answer is simple. They took it out because of the hue and cry by the anti-vaxxers who were convincing people to not get vaccinated if the vaccine had Thimerosal in it. So they took it out as a means of reassuring fearful people, not for medical or scientific reasons. Public perception only.
As for Quackwatch, it was founded in 1969 by Dr. Richard Barrett in Allentown, PA as the Lehigh Valley Committee Against Health Fraud.. He incorporated the committee in 1970 as Quackwatch. It operates on donations and donated time by volunteers. Quackwatch backs up their statements by citing relevant research documents from credible sources. Dr. Barrett operates about twenty-five related websites.
From their mission statement: “Quackwatch is an international network of people who are concerned about health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies, and misconduct. Its primary focus is on quackery-related information that is difficult or impossible to get elsewhere.”
From their main web page: “Quackwatch has grown considerably. To help visitors with special areas of interest, we maintain 24 additional sites for autism, chiropractic, dentistry, multilevel marketing, and many other hot topics. We are also closely affiliated with the National Council Against Health Fraud, which cosponsors our free weekly newsletter, and with Bioethics Watch, which highlights issues of questionable research on humans. Our Internet Health Pilot site provides links to hundreds of reliable health sites. Our Casewatch site contains a large library of legal cases, licensing board actions, government sanctions, and regulatory actions against questionable medical products. These sites can be accessed through the “Visit Our Affiliated Sites” drop-down menu above. Their contents can be searched selectively with our WebGlimpse multi-site search engine or all at once through our Google search page.”
See more at: http://quackwatch.com/#sthash.3Wj4IN06.dpuf
If they were bogus, they would have been sued into oblivion decades ago.
NaturalNews.com and Mercola, alone, provide Quackwatch with enough material to keep it busy.
Not to mention Suzanne Humphries and Functional Medicine…oops, I did!
from the cdc, in recent case 25% of measles cases were intentionally unvaccinated.
“As of February 11, a total of 125 measles cases with rash occurring during December 28, 2014–February 8, 2015, had been confirmed in U.S. residents connected with this outbreak. Of these, 110 patients were California residents. Thirty-nine (35%) of the California patients visited one or both of the two Disney theme parks during December 17–20, where they are thought to have been exposed to measles, 37 have an unknown exposure source (34%), and 34 (31%) are secondary cases. Among the 34 secondary cases, 26 were household or close contacts, and eight were exposed in a community setting. Five (5%) of the California patients reported being in one or both of the two Disney theme parks during their exposure period outside of December 17–20, but their source of infection is unknown. In addition, 15 cases linked to the two Disney theme parks have been reported in seven other states: Arizona (seven), Colorado (one), Nebraska (one), Oregon (one), Utah (three), and Washington (two), as well as linked cases reported in two neighboring countries, Mexico (one) and Canada (10).
Among the 110 California patients, 49 (45%) were unvaccinated; five (5%) had 1 dose of measles-containing vaccine, seven (6%) had 2 doses, one (1%) had 3 doses, 47 (43%) had unknown or undocumented vaccination status, and one (1%) had immunoglobulin G seropositivity documented, which indicates prior vaccination or measles infection at an undetermined time. Twelve of the unvaccinated patients were infants too young to be vaccinated. Among the 37 remaining vaccine-eligible patients, 28 (67%) were intentionally unvaccinated because of personal beliefs, and one was on an alternative plan for vaccination. Among the 28 intentionally unvaccinated patients, 18 were children and ten were adults…