Professional Misconduct
There has been an enormous amount of uproar in recent years about the possibility that the combined Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine is the cause of an increase in the incidence of autism. The whole ruckus started in 1998 with a study published in the British medical magazine The Lancet. That study, by Canadian physician Andrew Wakefield, then working at the Royal Free Hospital in London, claimed that traces of measles virus found in autism-afflicted children had to derive from the MMR vaccine. Fuel was added to the whole bonfire by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, writing in the prestigious medical journal Rolling Stone (that was a snark, for the ClueProof®). As a result of the Wakefield-Kennedy fueled brouhaha, many well-educated, affluent folks in the West declined MMR vaccination for their offspring. Despite multiple studies since Wakefield's that debunk the link he stated so positively.
And now Wakefield is about to be the subject of hearings in Britain over serious allegations of gross professional misconduct. It seems he is accused of breaking many, many rules to achieve the "results" of his little study.
The General Medical Council hearing, expected to last 15 weeks, centers on research published in the Lancet medical journal in 1998 in which Andrew Wakefield and colleagues posited a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.
The claim led to fierce worldwide debate among researchers and caused a decline in MMR vaccinations that health experts in the United Kingdom say has not yet recovered to the level seen before Wakefield's study.
Scientific evidence suggests that vaccines are not linked to autism but a vocal group of people remain unconvinced.
Vaccine experts say parents often link vaccines with their children's symptoms because getting a shot can be upsetting, and children are vaccinated at an age when autism and related disorders are often first diagnosed.
The council will not look into the scientific claims but whether Wakefield and two colleagues — John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch — violated a number of ethical practices during the study involving young children.
"The panel will inquire into allegations of serious professional misconduct by Dr. Wakefield, Professor Walker-Smith and Professor Murch, in relation to the conduct of a research study involving young children from 1996-1998," the group said.
The council regulates doctors in Britain and could bar the three from practice. It said it would also look into charges Wakefield was involved in advising solicitors representing children claiming to have suffered harm due to the MMR vaccine.
Wakefield also faces a charge that he acted unethically by taking blood from children at a birthday party after offering them money and without proper ethical approval.
Wakefield's study as been thoroughly debunked by many other studies which did not violate ethics to get to their results. Odd, isn't it? As to the highly-educated, affluent folks who refused vaccination for their children, it is time to rethink that - while you still have time. Or rather, while your children still have time. There was a severe outbreak of mumps in the Midwest last year. How much of that was due to "highly-educated" decisions based on a hack article in Rolling Stone?
Bad Ideas, Junk Science, Left Wing, Medicine | Gaius Sunday, 15 July , 2007
By Roy Lofquist, Sunday, 15 July , 2007 @ 11:38 pm
Rule of thumb number one: people with hyphenated names …