Comments on: Dr. Andrew Wakefield “a man in a hurry”

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:19:50 +0000

The colonoscopies performed on the children at the Royal Free Hospital were not “clinically necessary”:

http://www.autismvox.com/colonoscopy-at-the-royal-free-hospital-was-not-clinically-justified-500000-payout/

One child’s bowel was perforated in more than 12 places during the surgery; he spent two weeks in intensive care afterwards at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

By: Jan

Jan — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:00:43 +0000

Please post your source for information on if there were complications following the procedures in this study. This is the first I have seen this and if there is proof, rather than just rumor, I for one would like to see it.

By: Anke Koelman

Anke Koelman — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:47:07 +0000

I totally agree with JMH. Even if what Wakefield found was only a piece of the puzzle and even if his explanation was not quite right, at least he had the courage to step out of the scientific belief systems and do the research. Science can be like a religion. People believe what they are told is the truth (such as the belief that the earth is a flat pancake) until insurmountable evidence proves otherwise, but until that time they will defend their beliefs as if their life depends on it.
I wish the same amount of effort had been put into good solid unbiased scientific research to investigate the following:
➤ The effect of Thimerosol on babies before the Pharmaceutical companies decided to use it as a preservative (and is it really the only and best available preservative to give to young babies?)
➤ The effectiveness of vaccinating a baby at an age where the immune system is immature (till 9 months of age) and where the mother’s antibodies are supposed to protect the baby as their immune system is not capable of working out what antibody to make yet. So how can it work out what antibody to make in response to a vaccine or 3 vaccines in one??
➤ The effect of three vaccines at any one time instead of one on the child’s immune system.
Where are the antibody titers that prove that a 2 month old baby has made sufficient antibodies against 3 diseases to protect him/her against these diseases?
If you think these things have been researched as they should, please give me the science as I have been looking for these research articles for the last 20 years.
Perhaps it is like Thalidomide where only the horrific effects of the drug stopped its general us. Another obvious example is the hormone replacement pill (HRT), where all the critics were silenced until the required proper research was belatedly done. As a result the life threatening side effects of HRT were proven and the research project was subsequently abandoned.
Let us put our effort into getting to the cause of the rise in ASD, Asthma, allergies etc., rather than blocking from our investigation everything that doesn’t agree with our belief systems.
AK

By: JMH

JMH — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:25:00 +0000

Wakefield is a hero, and his research conclusions are correct. His “hurry” was to try to save tens of thousands of children from destruction at the hands of the CDC and a poorly thought out vaccination program. In your rush to crucify him, you have forsaken thousands of children, and each of you should be ashamed of yourselves. From who have you received your pieces of silver. The CDC? Big Pharma? or other government bureaucrats trying to cover up the inoculation nightmare they have created for tens of thousands of families?

By: Matthew H

Matthew H — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:00:21 +0000

I suppose the General Medical Council are not really the ones to do this job effectively (presuming there was research misconduct and research without consent). They really are a corrupt old body who generally protect scientific crooks, like one previous member of the Medicines Control Agency, medical directors of a certain large pharmaceutical company and a couple of medical school Deans …….

So Wakefield’s (presumably) deserved punishment is hardly going to work out well

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:24:18 +0000

I tend to think of it also in the phrase “young man in a hurry.”

By: Regan

Regan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:19:41 +0000

Hence the “Beware”. In Wakefield’s case of societal impact and the immediate and substantial injury to at least one of the original study subjects, the caveat seems to apply.
What a lot of damage one individual can cause.

By: Regan

Regan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:17:10 +0000

The saying comes from cutting corners to make a splash and score some kind of coup.

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:11:09 +0000

If you review the history of Wakefield and the MMR, it’s possible to get the impression that the “hurry” was about having some kind of breakthrough medical discovery; I also think the media were kind of “in a hurry” to report on his findings, and to make a movie about him.

By: Regan

Regan — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:00:01 +0000

I don’t know if the “man in a hurry” was meant literally or is a derivative of the political saying, “Beware of an old man in a hurry”, but it seems to apply.