I Speak of Dreams

Is It True That Andrew Wakefield's Research Never Claimed Vaccines Cause Autism?

It is true-ish.  

Wakefield's now-retracted  paper, "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children"   did not claim to show that vaccines cause autism, and concluded:

“We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to resolve this issue.”

but Wakefield loudly proclaimed at the 1998 press conference, and ever since, that the MMR was linked to autism:`

Jeremy Laurance, a UK reporter, was at the press conference and published this report in 2010

[The Royal Free Hospital]  decided to deal with the inevitable press interest head on. It called a press conference before a panel of five doctors, led by Professor Arie Zuckerman (a virologist and dean of the medical school, but not an author of the paper), who were carefully selected to present a balanced view. All were eminent in their own fields but, fatally, each had a different opinion.

The five had rehearsed the press conference in advance and agreed the line they would take, which was to recommend continued use of the MMR vaccine pending further research. Under questioning, however, this carefully constructed consensus fell apart.

The five of them were sitting behind a table with Andrew Wakefield on the extreme left and Arie Zuckerman on the right. The tension rose as the event progressed and by the end Wakefield was coolly urging parents to give their children single vaccines at annual intervals, while Zuckerman was on his feet, banging the lectern in frustration as he insisted that the MMR vaccine had been given to millions of children around the world and was safe.

Brian Deer has a transcript of the interview Wakefield gave to Twenty Twenty Television on February 4 1998

DR ANDREW WAKEFIELD: ... And I have to say that there is sufficient anxiety in my own mind of the safety, the long term safety of the polyvalent, that is the MMR vaccination in combination, that I think that it should be suspended in favour of the single vaccines, that is continued use of the individual measles, mumps and rubella components...there is no doubt that if you give three viruses together, three live viruses, then you potentially increase the risk of an adverse event occurring, particularly when one of those viruses influences the immune system in the way that measles does. And it may be, and studies will show this or not, that giving the measles on its own reduces the risk of this particular syndrome developing... the risk of this particular syndrome developing is related to the combined vaccine, the MMR, rather than the single vaccines.... People have been saying for some time, people on the periphery of autism, have been saying for some time that this may well be related to bowel damage. The Italians for example have found that children who are autistic have in many cases a leaky intestine. Others, biochemists, have been saying that it may be a toxic state that absorption of chemicals such as opioid, peptides, morphine like substances from the gut that you and I produce in our diet from milk and wheat, are actually getting access through that leaky gut into the developing brain.

On May 8, 2012, the blog Left Brain/Right Brain published a list, "Andrew Wakefield’s many statements that MMR causes autism". (Left Brain/Right Brain Blog first came into existence in 2003. Over the years it has changed its basic form a few times but its core content and interest has always been autism and the news, science – and bad science – associated with it.)

International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2014

January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in 1945, was declared International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust by the United Nations in 2005.

The memorial day this year is built around the theme "Journeys through the Holocaust".

From the gallery, World War II, the Holocaust, http://wodumedia.com/world-war-ii-the-holocaust/

My e-pal Nick Walker, on Facebook:

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. One thing that I wish were more widely remembered is that disabled people were among the first targets of the Nazis. The rhetoric of the Nazi eugenics movement portrayed the disabled as "burdens" whose existence was an economic drain, a "crisis" that society couldn't afford. The Nazis borrowed this rhetoric from the early 20th Century eugenics movement in the U.S.A., and, once they'd had success using it to justify the mass murder of the disabled, they used variations of the same rhetoric to justify the mass murder of every other group they targeted. Remember this today, and remember it every time you hear anyone describe the lives of disabled people as "burdens," or talk about any sort of disability in terms of societal "crisis" or how much it "costs non-disabled people."

Bob Wright, co-founder of Autism Speaks, 2012:

"Autism is a global public health crisis. The costs are staggering and will continue to rise as prevalence continues to increase." 

Via Emily Titon:

Translated Text: "60,000 Reichsmark is what this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the People's community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too. Read '[A] New People', the monthly magazine of the Bureau for Race Politics of the NSDAP.""

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Wikipedia:

Action T4 was the name used after World War II for Nazi Germany's "euthanasia program" during which physicians murdered thousands of people who were "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination". The programme officially ran from September 1939 to August 1941, and it continued unofficially until the end of the Nazi regime in 1945.

During the official stage of Action T4, 70,273 people were killed at various extermination centres located at psychiatric hospitals. Evidence was revealed at the Nuremberg Trials that German and Austrian physicians continued the euthanization of patients after October 1941, and that a total of about 275,000 people were murdered under T4. Based on files recovered after 1990, 21st century research provides evidence that at least 200,000 physically or mentally handicapped people were killed in gas chambers, by medication, or deliberate starvation between 1939 and 1945.

Autism $peaks Claimed To Have Fixed This On January 18 2012. They Lied.

On January 24, 2014, I became aware that an issue I thought had been resolved in 2012 was in fact a live issue. Alyssa has just published Autism Speaks Are Work-Stealing, White-Texting Liars.

Edited to add: I apologize, I forgot to list the credit. Image source is Boycott Autism Speaks' Facebook page, a January 24 2014 post.. For non-Facebook folk, you can learn more about Boycott Autism Speaks at http://boycottautismspeaks.com/   If you would like to read Kassiane's blog, go to http://timetolisten.blogspot.com/

 

Back in  2011, Kassiane Sibley became aware that Autism $peaks had approriated her work.  I wrote the following blog post on January 17, 2012:

Suppose you are an adult with a particular disability.  There are a number of national  organizations and charities whose mission is  to support your particular disability, but one is dominant, with an annual budget of over $50 million and a massive grass-roots fundraising campaign, with dozens of walks across the country engaging tens of thousands of volunteers.  However, you (and many other adults with this disability) have profound and  irreconcilable ethical and philosophical differences with the organization's mission and goals.

Suppose further that you are an author, and this organization, without your permission, has used a passage from your published works in one of their copyrighted publications.  When you ask the organization to remove the passage, they ...don't really comply.

Now what can you do?

Pharma Shill Jamboree!

Three Days of Shilling

23-25 June, Bilderberg Hotel

Come join your fellow pharma shills and we share our experiences lying to the anti-vaccers abou the true horrors of vaccines and medicine

All details at http://conference.sageofautism.com/

Keep up with pharma shill news at http://sageofautism.com/

Facebook Participating In Censorship of Science and Rational Thought. Again.

Update 12:54 pm, January 10, 2014. Facebook rescinded the ban of AntiVaccine Wall of Shame. Thank you Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/AVWOS/ Allison Hagood's account has been unbanned.

Update 3:12 pm January 10, 2014.  All of the administrators of AVWoS are still banned -- one for as long as 30 days. 

Update 3:55 pm January 10, 2014: While the page has been restored, the bans for all admins (24 hours for Michelle Saxl, 3 days for Lance Penna , 3 days for Michael Simpson's account, 7 days for Allison Hagood, and THIRTY DAYS for Scott Ogle are still in effect.

Facebook still needs to fix that.

 

A new banning just took place. There’s a Facebook page called “The Antivaccine Wall of Shame” (AVWoS). It has been taken down. Allison Hagood (one of the co-authors of ‘Your Baby’s Best Shot) has had her personal account banned from Facebook for 7 days. Here the message that Allison received from Facebook, relative to AVWoS

“The group “Anti Vax Wall of Shame” has been removed because it violated our Terms of Use. Among other things, groups that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed. We also take down groups that attack an individual or group, or advertise a product or service. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in your account being disabled.

Here is Allison’s reply to Facebook:

There is nothing hateful, threatening, or obscene about the group "Anti Vax Wall of Shame." The fact that you have removed this indicates that you have been receiving fraudulent reports from the anti-vaccine movement, who are on record as coordinating and planning massive campaigns of such fraudulent reports in an attempt to censor those of us who recognize established science in this area. Several stories have been written about these campaigns:

• http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/abusing-the-algorithm-using-facebook-reporting-to-censor-debate/
• http://reasonablehank.com/2013/12/31/meryl-dorey-and-her-anti-vaccine-organisation-abusing-facebooks-reporting-mechanism-with-spite/
• http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/facebooks-reporting-algorithm-abused-by-antivaccinationists-to-silence-pro-science-advocates/
• http://www.sabreakingnews.co.za/2014/01/02/anti-vaccine-group-abuses-facebooks-algorithm-to-censor-a-debate/
• http://www.danbuzzard.net/journal/anti-vaxxers-ramp-up-censorship-campaign.html
• http://za.news.yahoo.com/anti-vaccine-group-abuses-facebook-algorithm-censor-debate-123721143.html
• http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/01/02/antivaccinationists-abuse-reporting-algorithms-to-silence-pro-vaccine-skeptics-on-facebook/

By removing this group, and giving the administrators of this group bans, you are actively participating in the censorship of science and rational thought, and pandering to the perpetrators of censorship and fraud.

It is legitimate for Facebook to prevent harassment, and without context, the Anti-Vaccine Wall of Shame does look as if it might border on harassment.

Dorit Reiss (who wrote the Times of Israel piece, “Abusing the Algorithm: Using Facebook Reporting to Censor Debate") suggests the following be publicly explained to Facebook as context:

To understand the need for the Anti-vax Wall of Shame, and why it is not harassment, you need to understand two features of the fight against anti-vaccine misinformation. The first is that anti-vaccine sites censor debate. So if they encourage people not to vaccinate their children against polio or tetanus - leaving those children at risk - based on misinformation, you cannot correct that misinformation on the page: they will ban and block you. The second feature is that anti-vaccine activists, lacking facts on their side, regularly engage in personal attacks.

There is documentation of personal attacks by antivaccine advocates on Facebook, in the form of screenshots and a closed Facebook page that collects said attacks.  For example, the exchange below, which has both a personal attack on Allison Hagood and a suggestion that readers contact her employer to complain.   (I personally collected this one and have a large library of such attacks.)  

Dorit Reiss (who has also been attacked, sometimes with vile anti-Semitic slurs) goes on:

[Th]ose of us engaged in this debate regularly face personal abuse. (On Facebook and on websites outside of Facebook.) The Anti-Vax Wall of Shame (AVWoS) does two things in this context: it allows us to call out the behavior, both the misinformation and the abuse - to publicly criticize and point out the problems, alerting people to it. And it allows those engaged in this fight, facing constant abuse, to vent their frustrations and cry out. This enables them to keep fighting.

To prevent the critique from becoming harassment, AVWoS page rules require removal of names and pictures, except when discussing a public figure. This makes the critique not personal - and not harassment. Do individual commentators sometimes step over the line and into harassment? Possible. But that does not make the page a hate group or a focus of harassment. Its role does make it a target of anti-vaccine activists, unhappy with being criticized. But that is not a reason to remove it, and their unhappiness is not something Facebook should be a part of."

I am frustrated by Facebook's hair-trigger ban hammer, and how it can be sued to stifle approrpriate criticism and public discourse.  I don't have any answers.