Tweet
The practice of good science requires an open mind. Experiments and studies preformed may confirm what one suspects, or they may completely discredit an hypothesis. Further for any new theory to be valid it has to be reproducible by others in independent laboratories. All of this is by design. The pursuit of science is the pursuit of the accurate understanding of the universe; to be truly accurate you have to have cross-checks.
British Dr. Andrew Wakefield did not practice good science. He infamously claimed that the Measles – Mumps – Rubella vaccine was a trigger for the onset of autism. His 1998 paper in which he claimed the link between the MMR vaccine and autism was withdrawn this year by the Lancet. 10 of the 13 doctors who originally signed on to the paper have withdrawn their support and the work in the paper was extremely flawed.
"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"
The study which has caused so much confusion and consternation for parents of autism spectrum children and non-autism spectrum children alike was a study of only 12 children and actually said in it :
"We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described."
What the study did say is that is there seemed to be some link between the time when children were vaccinated and the time when most of cases of autism were also diagnosed. That is a correlation, but it is not in any way an establishment of causality. Lots of things start happen between the age of 1 ½ and 3 which could be triggering autism, if it indeed has a trigger in that sense.
Up to that point, it is good science. There seems to be something there, lets go and take a look at it. What happened with Dr. Wakefield was that he refused, and still refuses to let go of the hypothesis. He gained an enormous amount of fame and money from being able to point to a cause for at sum. He became a celebrity doctor with pals like Jenny McCarthy and other high profile parents of autism spectrum children. All this would have been great if there had been other studies that confirmed what his vanishingly small sample study pointed to. They did not.
Time after time larger scale studies done by other doctors in England and elsewhere showed there was no difference in the autism rates for children who were vaccinated with the MMR vaccine and those who were not. Yet the fear of autism and militancy of some parents of autistic children was enough to do incredible harm. Since the study appeared in the Lancet and the firestorm began, vaccination rates for Measles in Britain have fallen to 61%. This means that tens of thousands of children will be sickened by this disease which can permanently harm or even kill.
There are consequences for really bad science. Dr. Wakefield is facing them now. As of today his license to practice medicine in Britain has been revoked. The General Medical Council found that Dr. Wakefield was guilty of serious professional misconduct.
It is hard to for those of us who do not have autism spectrum children to understand what those who do feel. As with any group there is going to a range of view points. I know there those who never bought into this idea that vaccination was a trigger, but there are also a very vocal and visible segment of the population who will continue to beat the drum for this theory even though it has been totally discredited. They may be acting out of guilt or fear or any of a host of reasons, but as long as they continue to insist on an idea that has no basis in science they are actually setting back the cause they are so passionate about.
If there is a silver lining in all of this, it is that Dr. Wakefield’s (or should that be Mr. Wakefield now?) claim has focused a lot more attention on autism and what causes the on set of this condition. It is always a good thing when more attention is focused on a condition, even if the original reason for it was fraudulent.
One of the things which makes this time in human history so interesting is the ability for information to be shared and shared quickly world wide. The problem with that is that bad information can be shared and reinforced just as quickly as the good. When emotion and the desire for a certain outcome is fused with bad information we see the result we have with the debate about the causes of autism. There are a lot of hurting parents out there who saw the best thing they ever did, their child, go from being on the normal path of development to the autistic path. This can be incredibly painful and the idea that there is an external source is one that is very attractive.
Sadly it is not supported by science. This is what many people miss about science, it does not care what we want or hope. It can’t help us if our point of view is contrary to the evidence. This is not done out of malice but it can feel that way. For people who desperately want an simple explanation, science often falls short. It would be nice to be able to say that the withdrawal of the Lancet article and the banning of Dr. Wakefield from the practice of medicine will put this pseudo-scientific notion that vaccines are a trigger for autism, but the reality is some will never let go of an explanations for the inexplicable change in their child. As long as that is true we will have to refute and ague about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, to the detriment of the very children they are designed to protect.
The floor is yours
12 Comments
Two problems with your post. First, you never describe the supposed misconduct. I hope it’s more than refusing to let go of a discredited hypothesis; I say this for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is how this would contrast with the use of the word “fraud.” Second, you break a basic rule when you say that vaccination rates in Britain have “fallen to 61%.” Fallen from what? If the answer is 62%, then it could well be insignificant.
To answer one of my own question: the ban had nothing to do with not letting go of the hypothesis; it had to do with the conduct of the study, itself, as well as having a undisclosed financial interest in the outcome.
Fair enough. Wakefield had his license pulled for 30 counts of misconduct flowing from this study. They include faking evidence and failing to disclose his financial relationship with attorneys who sued over harm vaccines have done.
As for vaccination rates, they were in the 95% range which is where you get “herd immunity” meaning that the disease is unlikely to strike even the unvaccinated population.
You can find the articles I took that from here
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article4821352.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8695267.stm
I see nothing on “faking evidence.” I do see that the Brits say their rate of MMR use dropped from 92% to 85%.
Sorry to be so in-your-face, but I don’t like vague and/or inaccurate science reporting. Part of my anger is also misdirected (at you). That the Brits included the effects of what Wakefield has said as a reason to yank his license is unacceptable to me. It’s the antithesis of science to do such.
Oh, never apologize for being in my face. Part of the reason to do this is to get better at it. If I don’t get feed back, I can’t improve.
Well, in that case, here’s my suggestion for something that would be novel and interesting WRT this story: separate the issues into three classes. There are unambiguous and non-political science issues (i.e., issues that anyone who has taken a basic methods course should know about), such as the small sample size and potential confounds in the original study. Then there are issues that relate to the “rules” for conducting research, such as how to recruit participants, get consent, and be up-front about conflicts of interest. Finally, there are issues related to the consequences – intended or otherwise – of giving your interpretation of the findings. The case against Wakefield is a mish-mash of all three. What I find particularly upsetting, since I happen to believe in academic freedom, is that items from the third category were used against him. This was silly, too, since he broke enough rules, from what I can tell, from the second of the three categories to justify the ban.
Here is the source:
http://www.gmc-uk.org/Wakefield_SPM_and_SANCTION.pdf_32595267.pdf
He personally caused hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted research, wasted time by virtually every general pediatrician in the developed world every day of work since 1998, and outbreaks of disease that have caused deaths. In my opinion, he should be punished a lot more than just losing his license.
For future reference checks in this area, you can try
http://www.acsh.org/
or
http://www.quackwatch.com/
and you can even use wikipedia.org as a great source to reference check if long as you keep in mind the subject matter and whether the references are credible.
Again, I suggest that you break this into three separable pieces. It is clear that he broke many rules WRT recruitment, consent, data collection, and full disclosure, but I’ve seen nothing to support the idea that he falsified results. Even more disturbing is your suggestion (under the handle “scientificmethod,” no less) that someone should be punished for arguing in favor of a later-discredited theory. If you allow that, then science dies. Who would dare suggest any important new idea if it was possible to be held responsible for the unintended consequences of being wrong?
So what is the Recommended Daily Allowance of mercury for infants? What is the science behind saying all vaccines and all drugs and all mercury preservatives in drugs will cause no neurological problems in all infants? Is there any?
What about the conflict of interest in the CDC? They have two missions. Give every child every vaccine possible and determine the cause of epidemics. Vaccines can’t cause any epidemic ever so there is no conflict of interest – is that your science?
No one has ever left the CDC to go to work for drug companies so there is no conflict of interest possible there?
Will the executives of Merck amd Glaxo always take the public interest over personal profit just like their cohorts at Goldman Sachs and BP? You can’t get more scientific than that. Their employees do wear white coats to work.
George the point is that there has been exactly zero evidence linking autism to vaccination. None. The study done in Denmark looked at 500,000 kids, the level of autism in vaccinated and unvaccinated children was the same. Exactly the same.
While there are issues with how cuddly a regulatory agency is with the industry it is regulating that is a side issue to what causes autism. Don’t conflate issues.
As for the mercury, it is not being used in infant vaccines anymore and thiemarisol is not the same as mercury from an old thermometer.
While I agree about the lack of evidence that autism is caused by MMR vaccination (with the Danish retrospective study being one of the best), please keep in mind that everyone – from the PHS to the vaccine makers – agreed that thimerosal should be reduced or eliminated from vaccines and that they all agreed about this more than 10 years ago (1999). I’m unaware of there being more than one kind of mercury; if you’re saying that some mercury-containing compounds are less dangerous than others, then I agree. However, your suggestion that thimerosal is safe does not enjoy empirical support and is belied by the agreement to remove it from vaccines.
If anyone knows whether the Danes were using an MMR vvaccine with or without thimerosal back when kids born in 1991-1998 were vaccinated, that would be useful. I have no idea.
Two other points.
First, if it is found that the data supporting a particular theory were either collected in an unacceptable manner or were even flat-out fabricated then that does not constitute evidence against the theory. Such data should simply be ignored, either for ethical reasons or for failing to be relevant. Example: Mendel’s data were clearly fudged, but we don’t take that as evidence against genetics.
Second, it is very difficult to prove the null. (Most say it is impossible.) So it’s an over-statement to say that the Danish study, for example, proved that there is no link between MMR vaccines and autism. The confidence interval for rate-multiplier in that study – even with an N of 500,000 – went from something in .80s to something like 1.20. The proper conclusion is that MMR doesn’t alter autism rates by more than 20%. It is not correct to say that there’s no relationship at all.
Again, as of now, there’s no good evidence in favor of Wakefield’s claim. However, there is also no evidence that he is a “fraud” (to the extent that he was never accused of falsifying data) and the evidence that he is wrong is not very strong.