John, I was trying to make the point that although Dr. O'Leary's lab may competently perform PCR assays now, it's unreasonable to claim that that indicates that the earlier results were correct, given the damning criticism from Dr. Bustin (e.g., positive results in assays that left out an essential step, determining a test was positive even though it was negative according to the lab's standard operating procedures) and the careful work by D'Souza, Fonbonne, and Ward that I mentioned earlier. (I commend that paper to you, as it includes thorough discussion of the difficulties of this sort of PCR work, and it indicates how Dr. O'Leary's group went off track.)

I can't comment on Dr. Wakefield's difficulties in the UK, but I can say that I, like virtually everyone who uses PCR and has followed this issue, think that the "MMR causes autism" case is closed, not just because of Dr. Hornig's recent attempt to carefully reexamine Wakefield's hypothesis but because the totality of the evidence assembled since that idea was first put forward shows it, like so many other interesting ideas, to be incorrect.

Mark, for the past six years I've worked to develop a new therapy for a disease that killed my father; it's actually been quite satisfying to see that work come to fruition. That may disqualify me from posting here, but it happens that my small company doesn't work on vaccines--although we do use PCR in our studies. Accordingly, I seem to have a better grasp of the fine points that support or refute the pivotal work on the putative link of the MMR vaccine to autism than the typical visitor to this site. I do try to remain civil and rational when I post here.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Brian, that's helpful but not good enough. You need to identify your company so our readers can judge for themselves. None of us can claim to know your motives, we can only assess your interests. And your disclosure here is not yet sufficient for our readers to judge your interests.

Oh, by the way, Brian, can you say whether the Hornig study performed ethical science - or what the difference would have been between these scientists looking at sick patients, however ill-designed the study, and the three doctors presently subjected to a political trial at the UK's General Medical Council, based apparently solely on the allegations of a British jouralist?

And didn't the Hornig study confirm persistent measles virus in the ileum of two MMR vaccinated patients with bowel disease in 3 laboratories, including O'Leary's? Should this not be enough at the very least to re-open question (not that it was ever really closed)?

"The consistency of the findings between the three centres confirms the validity of O'Leary's methods - the same methods used in 2002 - and the accuracy of his finding of measles virus."

I don't understand this statement.

Do you mean that, after it was shown that O'Leary lab workers disregarded lab standard operating procedures while performing the earlier work, in the current study they again disregarded SOPs? Do you mean that, after Dr. Bustin showed that a thermocycler block used in the earlier work was out of whack (that is, the temperature gradient across the block was sufficient to produce spurious results) the lab neither replaced nor serviced the unit? Or do you mean that, after Bustin showed that the O'Leary lab reported positive results even when the crucial reverse transcriptase step (without which measles virus could not possibly be detected) was ommitted, the lab continued to forget to include this crucial step--and continued to report results that simply cannot be correct?

C'mon. In the face of whithering criticism from one of the world's foremost authorities on the technical aspects of PCR work, and after D'Souza, Fonbonne, and Ward showed by DNA sequencing of the PCR products formed using the Uhlmann primers that the few positive reactions in their study that were not obviously false positives (e.g., according to melting curves or molecular weight) did not, in fact, match measles sequences, O'Leary undoubtedly did his best to fix those myriad problems--exactly what you would expect from a distinguished scientist who, like all of us, sometimes makes mistakes.

Sorry if someone answered this already, but what's up with Mady Hornig?

What could be more frightening than a devastating disorder that affects one percent of children? How long can the insanity continue? How long can the government do nothing about it but deny it's related to vaccines?
Anne Dachel
Media editor

"The culture of fear engendered in the UK has meant that medical scientists refuse to address the issue, whilst our children suffer intolerable levels of pain and a future with no hope."

It is my belief that the medical establishment is oblivious to the disease because it has not had the pleasure of witnessing the horror of bowel disease. Namely - the daily gut pain, the distended bowel with gassy insides, the meltdowns and tantrums ensuing from the aforesaid gut pain, the abdominal cramping, the inflammation, the lack of peristalsis requiring kids to squat on the toilet seat to defecate, the resultant cleaning up of the bowel splatter from the walls and from over and under the toilet seat and the toilet bowl, about 5-6 times a day.

Maybe we ought to begin video recording some hellish moments from our lives and begin to send them to these public health officials. Everyone needs to share in the MMR "spoils" equally. It would only be fair.