Brian Deer Lords it at a Pharmaceutical Conference in France
This week journalist Brian Deer has been enjoying celebrity status at the luxury villa of Les Pensières of the Fondation Mérieux on the banks of Lake Annecy in the French alps: The Merieux foundation advertises its financial links to all three MMR manufacturers that were defendants in the UK litigation (GSK, Merck and Sanofi), as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
So far Deer has disclosed no pharmaceutical sponsorship or hospitality in his series of British Medical Journal articles attacking Andrew Wakefield and now Wakefield’s colleagues at the Royal Free Hospital, the last published just twelve days before conference began. Nor does he mention this latest engagement in a letter yesterday to the journal (presumably a dispatch from the conference itself). Meanwhile BMJ have failed to publish a letter pointing out the discrepancy and have once again given the lie to editor Fiona Godlee’s official ‘holier than thou’ stance on Conflict of Interest.
At a conference entitled ‘See Re-invigorating Immunisation Policy Implementation and Success: From Parent to Partner and from Broadcast to Engagement' Deer was keynote speaker at the introductory evening on Monday with an address ‘Money, media and retrospection. What drove the MMR crisis, and what lessons should we learn for the future?’ but also was listed to chair two sessions on Tuesday afternoon and evening.
This puts in ironic perspective the scathing remarks that Deer made about Dr David Lewis attending a vaccine safety conference in Jamaica in January in both in BMJ and in Nature News , but is also perhaps a gratifying apotheosis for everyone who has watched his remarkable career.
John Stone is Contributing Editor to Age of Autism.
Gotta love the graphic - Animal [Ph]arm - Orwell was a visionary! Great post! Thanks, John.
The Seven Commandments of Animalism are written on the wall of a barn. The most important is the seventh, "All animals are equal."
Eventually the laws are replaced with "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others", and "Four legs good, two legs better!" as the pigs become more human.
I suspect that privately the Gates clan, GAVI Alliance, and Pharma cartel, really do feel superior to the rest of us mere mortals, and righteously entitled to be in charge of the world. So, in point of fact, Gates and the controlling elites are "more equal than others".
Posted by: patrons99 | December 09, 2011 at 01:23 PM
Deer doesn't surprise anybody. He is a new age pagan.
"We will wash off the Christian veneer and bring out a religion peculiar to our race" - Joseph Carr - The Twisted Cross p. 203
Posted by: Media Scholar | November 28, 2011 at 01:46 PM
@ Jenny - why do some parents shun vaccination?
The excerpt that you quote could have come straight out of Bernays' Propaganda, which he called the secret government 80 years ago:
"Undoubtedly the public is becoming aware of the methods which are being used to mold its opinions and habits...
If the public becomes more intelligent in its commercial demands, commercial firms will meet the new standards. If it becomes weary of the old methods used to persuade it to accept a given idea or commodity, its leaders will present their appeals more intelligently.
Propaganda will never die out. Intelligent men must realize that propaganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends and help to bring order out of chaos."
We know what is at stake for the pharmaceutical companies, all their new products are flops, all that remains for their balance sheet is hundreds of vaccines now in the pipeline : but how do you make healthy people and their healthy children take a "medicine" that they don't need, for some disease they will never suffer from, either at all or severely, and take the very real risk of losing their health as a result, something that will be denied by the administrators of said medicine?
Their basic tools until now were Fear and Emotion, then they tried to impress us with the word Science, all this with the classic fallacies of propaganda, from ad-hominem and hate, to authority and the re-writing of history, just to pick a few. What will they come up with next??? How far will they need to drill down into the human subconscious, or will they discuss instead how more dumbed down, and therefore more accepting, they can make society as a whole?
Posted by: GennyGC | November 26, 2011 at 06:57 AM
"It's the economy, stupid!"
The behavioural economists who work for the vaccine-industrial-complex have truly come of age in this wacky world wide era of greed, corruption, and stupendous stupidity.
The recent vaccine junket at Annecy provided pudding proof of those pathological behaviours.
Posted by: Mark Struthers | November 26, 2011 at 06:43 AM
http://www.fondation-merieux.org/
http://www.linkedin.com/company/fondation-merieux
From above:-
"Fondation Mérieux is dedicated to controlling infectious diseases in developing countries. Its approach focuses on prevention and diagnosis and breaks the barriers that may exist between human and animal medicine, North and South, and all involved.
Fondation Mérieux has four main goals: support scientific research, share knowledge, support health structures and support patients and their families.
Specialties
Infectious Diseases"
Support scientific research? Support patients and their families?
Try telling THAT to Dr Wakefield and his former Royal Free colleagues and Isabella Thomas and the other (VERY unsupported) parents of the sick Lancet 12 children.
What these persons are ACTUALLY about is increasing vaccine manufacturers' already OBSCENE vaccine profits and to HELL with the side effects. This is what they really mean when they say they are 'Supporting health structures'.
Posted by: Jenny Allan | November 26, 2011 at 04:12 AM
http://www.vaccinestoday.eu/vaccines/why-do-some-parents-shun-vaccination/
From above:-
"Next week’s Fondation Merieux conference on immunisation policy promises to go beyond traditional approaches to vaccine acceptance by drilling down into the science of behaviour and the psychology of decision-making."
"What can be learned from social media tools and cutting edge research in fields like behavioural economics?"
Posted by: Jenny Allan | November 25, 2011 at 08:50 PM
Jenny's excerpt from the conference program really is an eye opener. I too was struck by this sentence:
"By recognizing that the two groups that know the most about immunization are the policy makers on the one hand and the anti-vaccination lobby on the other, we see that information alone can be polarizing, rather than simply driving positive opinion."
What an amazing admission. They state clearly that we are not crazed, misinformed lunatics, but extremely knowledgeable. The issue is not our our lack of knowledge, but our refusal to accept the spoon-fed conclusions they insist the data supports (i.e. the "positive opinion"). Our problem is not our lack of intelligence, but the pesky habit of critical thinking. It gets in the way of them making money.
What these people utterly miss is that they would have more credibility (that lack of "blind faith" they bemoan) had they not been exposed over and over as liars. Their solution is not less lying, but managing information that can expose the lies. Unbelievable.
Posted by: Jeff C | November 25, 2011 at 02:08 PM
This EXCELLENT professional BMJ Rapid Response from John Smith, in response to Brian Deer, has highlighted some of the GMC sworn testimony of Professor Walker Smith.
This is what these childrens' guts were REALLY like. But of course, as Isabella points out, neither the GMC, nor the BMJ, nor Deer have ever shown the slightest interest in the childrens' ongoing gastrointestinal problems and suffering.
http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d6823?tab=responses
"Professor John Walker-Smith gives an erudite and detailed explanation of many of the aspects of the bowel pathology at the General Medical Council Procedures from day 75 and on (Thursday 17 July 2008 and on ...)"
How could the GMC and BMJ, ignore the professional clinical evidence of a highly qualified and experienced world renowned paediatric gastroenterologist, and instead prefer the evidence of Brian Deer, a journalist with no qualifications in either medicine or science?
As Deer states on one of those excruciating filmed episodes outside the GMC premises:-
'They didn't have bowel disease!'
We wish Mr Deer. Oh how we WISH!!
Posted by: Jenny Allan | November 25, 2011 at 01:56 PM
Isabella Thomas asks:-
'How the BMJ can get away with this I do not know. They only show contempt for the children and their families as well as the doctors who try to help.'
They have 'got away' with this Isabella, because of protection and collusion at the highest levels. Fiona Godlee and Liz Wager from COPE, gave evidence to the Science & Technology Select Committee which was preparing a UK Parliamentary report on peer review in specialist journals,(May2011).
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/05/medical_journals_are_the_marke_1.html
At that meeting which also had representatives from Nature and other specialist publications, Dr Godlee stated that 'We all know each other here'. Ah yes, a very cosy arrangement indeed!!
More tellingly, as part of her evidence Godlee stated "“It has been said that journals are the marketing arm of the pharma industry and that is not untrue; to a large extent that is true,” She also called for 'more efforts towards transparency in medical publishing'.
This sheer barefaced hyprocrisy takes my breath away!! But there's worse. My husband complained to COPE (below) about the ethics (or lack of them) of the BMJ publishing Brian Deer's ridiculous unproven allegations, against Dr Wakefield and his colleagues, backed up by that Godlee et al Editorial stating the Lancet paper was 'fraudulent'.
Godlee, as we all know had to be dragged 'kicking and screaming' by the AoA editors, to admit the BMJ funding by MMR manufacturers Merck and GSK. Deer's Pharma sponsorship has NEVER been admitted, but can hardly be denied now, after this French Farce of a pharma marketing conference, with Deer actually chairing the sessions!!
My husband's complaint to COPE generated the following comment:-
"We are unable to investigate individual cases nor are we able to investigate editorial decision-making as it is the editor who has the final decision on what is, or isn't, published in their journal."
So it seems that this nice cosy cartel of specialist journal editors can publish whatever they like, however outrageous, unethical or even downright illegal. Of course Liz Wager, Chair of COPE, won't want to offend her friends, particularly since Godlee and Marcovitch have also chaired COPE in the past!! A similar complaint to the Press Complaints Commission was also refused on spurious grounds.
The PCC has now been disbanded by the UK government because of their failures over the Murdoch phone hacking scandals, and COPE is manifestly NOT preventing ethical transgressions and should be disbanded too. Some of the evidence presently being related to the Leveson Inquiry is far less serious than the illegal publishing by the BMJ of the confidential child medical records of Isabella's sons and the other Lancet 12 children.
As for Brian Deer publishing these childens' names on his website, he should be charged and prosecuted by the police, alongside those News of the World employees who now face criminal trials for their illegal evidence gathering activities. Some UK police officers have also been charged with criminal offences in connection with bribery, and allegations of illegally supplying information to Murdoch's newspapers.
Posted by: Jenny Allan | November 25, 2011 at 08:49 AM
Tuesday 19th April 2011
Sent by e-mail to Committee for Publication Ethics (COPE):-
I e-mailed complaints to the British Medical Journal’s complaints department on 4-02-11 and 17-02-11. As yet I have not had so much as an acknowledgement out of them, in spite of sending a reminder on 16-03-11. The complaints were in relation to the BMJ’s editorial and article by Brian Deer:-
‘Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent’ 5-01-11’
Fiona Godlee, editor in chief, Jane Smith, deputy editor, Harvey Marcovitch, associate editor
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452.full
‘Secrets of the MMR scare: How the case against the MMR vaccine was fixed’
Brian Deer 5-01-11
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full
I think this is a disgraceful way to treat complainants and, as I pointed out in my e-mail to the BMJ on 17-02-11, this also contravenes the BMA’s own protocol of acknowledging e-mail complaints within 3 days and a definitive response within two weeks.
I should also point out that my original formal complaint e-mailed to the BMJ on 4-02-11,was answered ‘collectively’ on a US autism site, and I am not now pursuing that complaint, but instead I have superseded it with another complaint indicating my dissatisfaction with BMJ Editor, Fiona Godlee’s responses.
I note that BMJ Editors Fiona Godlee and Harvey Malcovitch have both been involved with COPE before, so should be conversant with what constitutes ‘ethics’ in publishing. Dr Malcovitch also has an important role within the GMC. I find it unethical for him to be involved in making spurious unproven ‘fraud’ assertions against Dr Wakefield and the other Royal Free clinicians and researchers involved with the 1998 Lancet Article, two of whom were ‘struck off’ the medical register by the GMC.
I can forward copies of my complaints if requested.I look forward to your reply.
Yours faithfully
Brian Allan
From: [email protected]
To: BAllan
CC: [email protected]
Sent: 19/04/2011 15:29:40 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: FW: British Medical Journal complaint
Dear Brian,
Thank you for contacting COPE. I am forwarding your email to our Operations Manager who will contact you in due course.
As you are no doubt aware, COPE is primarily a forum for editors and publishers of peer-reviewed journals to discuss issues related to the integrity of work submitted to, or published in, their journals. COPE does not judge on authorship disputes or editorial decisions such as acceptance or rejection of papers or choice of reviewers. Advice to COPE members is mainly provided via its quarterly Forum meetings. General advice on publication ethics is available on our website [http://publicationethics.org].
We will respond to your enquiry as soon as possible
With kind regards
Administrator
From: [email protected]
To: BAllan
Sent: 21/04/2011 11:02:51 GMT Daylight Time
Subj: RE: British Medical Journal complaint
Dear Brian
Thank you for your clarification. However, unfortunately, based on this we would be unable to take you complaint any further at this stage. COPE's remit is to support editors and publishers with managing publication misconduct in their journals. If a journal becomes a members of COPE then, as part of their membership, they agree to abide by the COPE Code of Conduct (linked to here; however, please note that the code of conduct also includes the more aspirational best practice guidelines which journals are NOT required to abide by.
http://www.publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct).
You can bring a complaint against a member journal if it can be shown that they have not abided by the Code of Conduct but, constitutionally, we are unable to investigate individual cases nor are we able to investigate editorial decision-making as it is the editor who has the final decision on what is, or isn't, published in their journal. We can only investigate whether an editor has followed recommended processes (according to the Code). If you can show us where the journal has not followed the Code of Conduct, by providing the information as requested below, then we can look into whether we can consider this as a complaint according to our complaints procedure (as seen here: http://www.publicationethics.org/files/u2/08_Editor_complaint.pdf).
I hope that is of some help.
Kind regards
Operations Manager
Posted by: Jenny Allan | November 25, 2011 at 06:34 AM
Wondering why not
Of course, we strive to get this on the agenda.
Posted by: John Stone | November 25, 2011 at 04:27 AM
I have decided to post my complaints and the replies from the BMJ on here because I want to show the public the way parents of sick children and young adults are treated by them.
My e-mail to Fiona Godlee below:
Dear Fiona Godlee,
1st complaint sent to you and H. Marcvitch on 20th January, 2011 by e-mail and tried to comment on the BMJ page.
2ND complaint sent to you on 8th April 2011
3rd complaint sent on 18th July2011
4th complaint sent today 2nd August 2011
According to your complaints procedure below:
http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/about-bmj/bmj-complaints-procedure
All complaints will be acknowledged (immediately on the phone, within three working days if by email or post).
To date I have not received a reply from you.
I have e-mailed you many times and tried to put a comment on the BMJ asking you questions about how you commissioned Brian Deer to write the article below making very serious accusations of fraud.
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full
I would also like to ask where Brian Deer got hold of an e-mail Richard Horton sent to me and which he quoted below in the BMJ.
This information was given to the courts and Justice Eady had strict rules on information from the parents being used outside the hearing by Brian Deer.
"Electronic chatter, once again, tells the tale. “The role of Brian Deer mystifies me,” he sent from his Blackberry to the mother of two children in the paper, two and a half years before he took the witness chair. “My own view is that the GMC is no place to continue this debate. But the process has started and it will be impossible to stop.”"
This was recognised by parents and media alike as my boys were the only two brothers in the Lancet study.
This article includes both my boys and gives details taken from some of their medical files. This information was ‘handpicked’ for your article and does not tell the full facts.
Why was I not informed about this article before it was published? Why did you not check the details with the families concerned?
"As made clear in the article, the core data on which the findings were based were evidenced, except in the case of one child, by the transcript of a General Medical Council fitness to practise hearing which sat between July 2007 and May 2010."
Does the transcript of oral testimony available from the GMC contain medical records , medical data , biopsy material , blood samples , pathology slides , MRI film or any other clear data in regards to this issue ?
If not how is it possible to put forward to the general public a clear and unequivocal argument for research fraud without reviewing the evidence in entirety ?
"It is primarily based on Royal Free hospital records, including histories taken by clinicians, and letters and other documents received at the Royal Free from GPs and consultants."
What ethical processes were there to ensure patient confidentiality ?
How were these records released to the BMJ for the undertaking of the peer review process and editorial checking ?
I want to know what documents were in your possession to make a claim of fraud when the GMC did not.
I have sent a complaint to The Committee on Publication Ethic last week but I am not sure how independent they are but if I do not get a reply will take this further.
I am told many parents also complained to you but their comments were not printed. I am also told that some doctors also complained but these was not placed under the comments page. I have that correspondence if needed from these people.
Please reply within the next seven days or I will take further action.
I will not go away. This involved my family.
I have sent a copy of this e-mail to COPE.
Isabella Thomas
REPLY TO MY E-MAIL:
From: Fiona Godlee [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 03 August 2011 14:48
To: Isabella Thomas
Cc: 'William Gore'
Subject: Re: Brian Deer's article in the BMJ
Dear Mrs Thomas,
I must apologise for not replying to your earlier emails. There was some confusion at this end as to who was going to draft a reply and it seems to have fallen through the cracks in our system.
In response to your earlier questions, no, Brian Deer did not show the BMJ any confidential documents or medical files relating to your children or family. The information was drawn from the transcripts of the GMC hearing, which was a statutory tribunal sitting in public.
The GMC hearing was set up to decide on Andrew Wakefield's fitness to practice. It found him guilty on four counts of dishonesty, including research dishonesty, but was not explicitly designed to investigate research fraud.
The BMJ reserves the right to decide which responses to publish on bmj.com. Editorial and legal considerations are taken into account when making these decisions.
I hope this is helpful and addresses your concerns.
Best wishes, Fiona Godlee
Dr Fiona Godlee FRCP
Editor in chief, BMJ
BMJ Group
BMA House
Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9JR
Tel: +44 (0)207 383 6002/+44 (0)1223 872084
Fax: +44 (0)207 383 6418
BMJ Group: http://group.bmj.com
Personal Assistant, Julia Burrell
[email protected]
Tel: +44 (0)207 383 6102
MY REPLY BELOW:
Sent: 04 August 2011 10:06
To: 'Fiona Godlee'
Cc: William Gore
Subject: RE: Brian Deer's article in the BMJ
Dear Fiona Godlee,
Thank you for acknowledging you received all my complaints but I am a bit puzzled about your reasons why I did not get a reply. It is interesting that copying my complaint to the PCC resolves that confusion. I am not satisfied with your reply. You have not answered all my questions which need to be answered urgently.
You say the information was drawn from the GMC transcripts but I have to point out to you that my private e-mail from Richard Horton was not part of the GMC transcripts and should not have been published in your journal. It is your responsibility to check the GMC transcript before allowing a journalist to vent his obsession regarding DR. Wakefield ant the lancet children in your journal. I assume patients come first and not journalists. I need you to investigate this point most urgently. I was informed why the GMC was investigating Dr. Wakefield and went to some of the hearings as my boys were involved but thank you for reminding me. Did you go to the hearings? Did you read the transcripts before making the allegations of fraud. Did you just take Brian Deer’s word for it? I ask this as Brian Deer has said that I was part of that fraud on other blogs which is another serious allegation that a parent of the Lancet study was involved when in fact my children were referred to the Royal hospital because they were and still are in a great deal of pain.
Please show me in the transcripts where in indicates fraud?
The BMJ does not reserve the right to come to the conclusion of fraud relying on a journalists understanding of the GMS transcripts who has no qualifications to do so.
I am shocked you paid a journalist and accepted his piece in your journal without checking the full facts.
You state in your last paragraph that the BMJ reserves the right to decide which responses to publish on bmj.com (meaning parents and qualified doctors) and that Editorial and legal considerations are taken into account when making these decisions yet none of that was taken into consideration when allowing a freelance journalist to publish an article with private e-mails to me without my permission.
Fiona, who are you protecting because it is certainly not the children or the families?
Many thanks,
Isabella Thomas
NO RESPONSE SO SENT ANOTHER ON:
From: Isabella Thomas [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 04 August 2011 13:00
To: [email protected]
Cc: William Gore; Isabella Thomas ([email protected])
Subject: Brian Deer and the BMJ
Dear Dr Godlee,
Further to my last email, I would also like to point out that the findings of the GMC are currently under appeal by Prof John Walker-Smith, and if the High Court finds for Prof Walker-Smith this will have considerable bearing on the findings against Andrew Wakefield. But also those findings are not at all the same as those currently being made by Mr Deer and yourselves. Prof Walker-Smith gave evidence in his own defence at the GMC regarding his central role in the diagnosis of the children and it is a documentary fact that he took the histories of children, not Andrew Wakefield. Your central allegation that Andrew Wakefield somehow single-handedly fabricated the data in the Lancet paper sits uncomfortably with the fact that none of the other 12 signatories have ever repudiated it, and when last year Mr Deer mis-reported the evidence of co-author Susan E Davies she was very clear about the matter: she stood by the clinical findings in the paper . This is why your allegations are fundamentally flawed, and your behaviour intolerable. Please answer where in the GMC hearings did Brian Deer find an e-mail sent to me by Richard Horton?
But this was not the editor’s mood before the hearing began. Electronic chatter, once again, tells the tale. “The role of Brian Deer mystifies me,” he sent from his Blackberry to the mother of two children in the paper, two and a half years before he took the witness chair. “My own view is that the GMC is no place to continue this debate. But the process has started and it will be impossible to stop.”
The two articles below are of great concern to me and I feel need to be investigated as a matter of urgency also.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/08/the-full-monty-a-review-of-brian-deer-and-british-medical-journals-competing-interests-in-the-wakefi.html#comment-form
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/07/james-murdoch-is-still-supported-by-glaxosmithkline.html
Isabella Thomas
REPLY:
From: Fiona Godlee [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 12 August 2011 15:31
To: Isabella Thomas
Cc: William Gore
Subject: RE: Brian Deer's article in the BMJ
Dear Mrs Thomas,
With regard to your query about the email from Richard Horton to yourself, we have referred this to Brian Deer who says that he cannot think of any reason why such an email would have been disclosed by and inspected in the case of Wakefield v Channel 4, but he thanks you for the information that the email was given to the courts and as such was distributed to third parties. More than that, he is unable to help. As I am sure you are aware, respecting the confidentiality of private sources is a central ethical tenet of investigative journalism.
The transcript is available on request from the GMC.
I can assure you that editorial and legal issues were fully considered in our decision to publish Brian Deer's articles in the BMJ.
We consider this correspondence closed.
Best wishes, Fiona Godlee
How the BMJ can get away with this I do not know. They only show contempt for the children and their families as well as the doctors who try to help.
Posted by: Isabella Thomas | November 25, 2011 at 03:57 AM
Is there are investigation being done on the Murdochs and MMR?
Posted by: wondering why not | November 24, 2011 at 10:24 PM
They must be getting desperate banding together to determine other strategies to sell more vaccines.
With the latest evidence leaning to proclaim Dr Wakefield's innocence, evidence (according to them)that should have been shut away for at least 100 years.
In the meantime, look at what we Aussies have to put up with from our own government. More money than sense (cents)!
http://www.theage.com.au/national/parents-get-jabbed-on-vaccination-20111124-1nwwm.html
Elizabeth
Posted by: AussieMum | November 24, 2011 at 09:57 PM
Now it is crystal clear that he works for big pharma."Brian"
digging dirt for seven years,now he is receiving his bonus vacation at a luxury villa in France.The vaccine empire is
more like 40 billion dollars today,so they can pay this
$h.t mixer for the destruction he did.
Posted by: oneVoice | November 24, 2011 at 07:31 PM
If James has to take it so will Deer as night follows day. good riddance to the lot of the B`s 40 years since Murdoch controlled the news in the dis -united UK of England and lets say the Pharma news that got out ,bad news was sat on ...as we all know to well
Angus
P.S.
JK Rowling 'felt invaded' at note put by press in daughter's schoolbag
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/24/jk-rowling-invaded-press
Posted by: Angus Files | November 24, 2011 at 05:54 PM
Pigs - all of them - total pigs. If this doesn't prove Brian Deer is being paid by pharma, I don't know what does.
Posted by: Jake Crosby | November 24, 2011 at 04:15 PM
Weeks after GSK paid $3 billion in fines for illegally marketing a drug that killed or injured millions, it is telling that Brian Deer joins pharmaceutical shills like SETH KALICHMAN at the French Chateau.
If Deer were a real investigator, the obvious conflict of interest would have prevented his attendance. He - like those in attendance - clearly support this ongoing criminal enterprise.
Posted by: Jenny | November 24, 2011 at 02:48 PM
'As I am sure you are aware, respecting the confidentiality of private sources is a central ethical tenet of investigative journalism.'
Fiona Godlee cannot be unaware that over the last four days evidence has poured into an inquiry into press ethics which describes in detail the extent to which ethics have influenced the conduct of British journalism in recent years:
http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/evidence/
For those unfamiliar with what is happening, this testimony is probably the most sickening to read:
http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Witness-Statement-of-Sally-Bob-Dowler.pdf
She has taken the BMJ down to the level of sleazy newspapers.
Posted by: GH | November 24, 2011 at 12:12 PM
Thank gawd with...with no medical training...& seven years of research on a 5 page paper... Brian Deer was able to save the 20 billion dollar, liability free, vaccine industry and restore confidence to millions of parents around the world.
I believe he is also a keynote speaker at the "Flat Earth Society" conference coming in 2012.
Posted by: cmo | November 24, 2011 at 10:33 AM
they are clearly placating him, stroking his enormous ego (over what I have no idea) I agree he is a liability that they are handling with kid gloves. He is playing his cards J.Edgar Hoover style
Posted by: Sarah | November 24, 2011 at 10:14 AM
@ Jenny
" By now, like the Sunday Times, they will have belatedly realised that Deer is simply NOT an asset."
Not only is Deer no longer an "asset" .. he has become a very dangerous "liability".
Which places Deer at the same risk of corporate retaliation from "the lot .. who were infamously caught out on e-mail stating their intention to 'seek out' dissenting scientists and 'destroy them where they live'.
Drip, drip, drip .....
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | November 24, 2011 at 09:07 AM
Re-invigorating Immunisation Policy Implementation and Success:
From Parent to Partner and from Broadcast to Engagement.
http://www.fondation-merieux.org/documents/en/conferences/2011/re-invigorating-immunization-policy-implementation-and-success-21-23-november-2011-programme.pdf
This conference was nothing to do with vaccine safety. It was all about marketing and how to best influence public perception in favour of vaccines. I call this propaganda and brainwashing and I find it quite sinister. These people use terms like 'behavioural economics' and 'the characteristics of human behaviour and decision making that make us predictably unpredictable'. Into my mind comes comparisons with the Nazi's Lord Haw Haw and Tokio Rose during World War 2. Brian Deer is the Lord Haw Haw of the pharmaceutical industry.
Read the blurb for yourselves. I found the following extracts quite significant:-
BACKGROUND
"Today’s health consumers are less and less accepting of blind faith and trust, and more and more demanding to be part of the decision making process. For some, not being involved in the decisiontaking can result in a loss of support. For others the uncertainty arising from the vaccine debate is seen as an opportunity to bring attention to other unrelated causes such as autism and multiple
sclerosis. These groups can be highly organized and vocal in their efforts to persuade parents as well as policy-makers that vaccines are unsafe, not needed, or infringing on individual rights.
Policy makers and implementers have been aware of this situation for some time and have gallantly done their best to provide more and more information to the consumers at all levels. As a result there is certainly more information out there. However experiences such as MMR and the recent H1N1 vaccine have forced us to ask ourselves whether information alone is sufficient. By recognizing that the two groups that know the most about immunization are the policy makers on the one hand and the anti-vaccination lobby on the other, we see that information alone can be polarizing, rather than simply driving positive opinion.
The field of behavioural economics has led the way in recognizing that individual and personal decision-making is not driven by facts, figures and objective cost-effectiveness alone. Behavioural economists have started to define the mix of economic analysis, values,emotion, peer advice, expert advice, and the innate and learnt biases and heuristics that drives decision making. It is clear from this work that there is more to just fact sharing in achieving high vaccination levels.
This meeting is intended to look beyond the fact and information based tools used for immunization program promotion. It will explore the characteristics of human behaviour and decision making that make us predictably unpredictable and looks at how this understanding might be used to rebuild trust in immunization, thereby helping is to re-invigorate immunisation policy implementation and success."
Posted by: Jenny Allan | November 24, 2011 at 09:04 AM
This conference is not about health or medicine, it is an "Edward Bernays" propaganda type brain-storming session to find new ways of understanding the much exploited "human behaviour", bending people's wills and lying to them. The vile Brian Deer is invited as the "de rigueur" scarecrow that's called upon to demonstrate how to smear and frighten those, especially in the medical profession, who not comply.
A sentence struck me in the link that you gave John -
"By recognizing that the two groups that know the most about immunization are the policy makers on the one hand and the anti-vaccination lobby on the other, we see that information alone can be polarizing, rather than simply driving positive opinion."
Well-well! the anti-vaccination lobby is one of the two groups that know the most about immunization!!! Although I'm not sure that the word "lobby" is actually applicable here. As for the policy makers, we know what drive$ them.
Posted by: GennyGC | November 24, 2011 at 08:59 AM
Hear, hear, Jenny. Well said!
Posted by: Mark Struthers | November 24, 2011 at 08:35 AM
Isabella-Take comfort from the fact that Brian Deer is a NOTHING, a NOBODY, whose malign press and media campaign against Dr Wakefield and his colleagues, has from the start been aided and paid for by corporate interests, his access to confidential material, including information about your sons and the other 10 Lancet study children, including names and addresses, willingly supplied by sources within the medical establishment and GMC, against all established rules of data protection and confidentiality. For Deer to publish the Lancet childrens' names on his website was outrageous!!
James Murdoch has now stood down (or been pushed)from his directorship of News Corporation, and it is rumoured, from all future involvement in newspapers. I think you will find that without James Murdoch's protection, the Sunday Times lawyers will soon be issuing another 'disclaimer' effectively disowning Brian Deer. Remember, this happened after THAT CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, where Deer claimed to be 'employed by The Times of London'.
James Murdoch's directorships of media companies BritishSkyBroadcasting and MMR manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline are also looking precarious; the latter was recently fined $3billion in the US for dishonest promotion of harmful drugs including Avandia. MMR manufacturers Merck have also been fined for much the same things, including that killer Vioxx. This lot were infamously caught out on e-mail stating their intention to 'seek out' dissenting scientists and 'destroy them where they live'.
I think that by now both GSK and Merck, both of which were involved with paying for the 'lavish hospitality',(Deer's words), accorded to Deer at that French conference, will be drawing up secret plans to distance themselves from Deer. By now, like the Sunday Times, they will have belatedly realised that Deer is simply NOT an asset.
Isabella, you have inspired us all with your bravery and persistence to promote the TRUTH. You WILL be compensated in the fullness of time, maybe not with money, but you WILL have justice, for yourself and your boys, the love of your family, and the admiration of the world.
Deer has NOTHING. If he goes down in history at all he will be portrayed with CONTEMPT!!
Posted by: Jenny Allan | November 24, 2011 at 07:06 AM
What is so scary is that this gives the man the air of actual medical knowledge!!! By allowing him to be keynote speaker implies he is in any position to make this kind of a speech. What a joke. I wholeheartedly agree, it seems he is constantly daring people to try and stop him! As long as he is supported by conference organisers like this, he can claim credibility and continue to strut around like cock of the walk.
Posted by: Susan Farndell | November 24, 2011 at 06:47 AM
Of course, Hugh Grant was absolutely right when he referred to the likes of Deer, the BMJ, and other elements of the Murdoch press culture, as "cowardly, bullying, shocking".
Posted by: Mark Struthers | November 24, 2011 at 06:38 AM
Isabella
Thanks for that. Notice the weasel wording from Deer and Godlee which does not actually deny that litigation papers were the source of the quote, and by implication confirms it. Nor does her email demonstrate the courteous and compassionate qualities we expect from a doctor or a medical journal: more like the complaints department of shoddy public company refusing to take responsibility for a faulty product. This is where we a familiar with the formular "We consider the correspondence closed." Shocking.
John
Posted by: John Stone | November 24, 2011 at 05:57 AM
I have tried to post on the BMJ complaining about Brian Deer and Fiona Godlee and the fact that they did not contact me or the other Lancet children's parents. They have not published my complaints.
They do not know how the bowel disease has progressed in the children. It still does not seem right that a reporter can use confidential information on the children and take it out of context not understanding what this bowel disease is all about or the pain the children suffer every day of their lives. He is not an expert in this condition yet he is allowed to attack the experts who are. Brian Deer has access to private e-mails from Richard Horton to me and has published some in the BMJ again taken them out of context. Where did he get hold of them? Has he got access to my e-mails? Did he get them from another court case where he would not be allowed to have them? I asked Fiona Godlee why she allowed him to publish them in the BMJ and her reply was:
With regard to your query about the email from Richard Horton to yourself, we have referred this to Brian Deer who says that he cannot think of any reason why such an email would have been disclosed by and inspected in the case of Wakefield v Channel 4, but he thanks you for the information that the email was given to the courts and as such was distributed to third parties. More than that, he is unable to help. As I am sure you are aware, respecting the confidentiality of private sources is a central ethical tenet of investigative journalism.
I can assure you that editorial and legal issues were fully considered in our decision to publish Brian Deer's articles in the BMJ.
We consider this correspondence closed.
Disgraceful
I asked a barrister who was at that court if Brian Deer can use information from that case and the reply was:
My clear perception of this is that any documents revealed to the Court were for that purpose only, and otherwise confidential. That is normally the case in litigation
I cannot afford to sue Brian Deer or the BMJ and they know this and can get away with using my children at the expense of their health. If it was not for the fact that my boys need a home to live in I would sell my house and fight them in court about the fact that my boys do have a bowel disease and a form of Autism. I would challenge Brian Deer on one of his blogs where he states that:
Ms Thomas, of course, is one of the individuals who KNOWS FOR A CERTAIN FACT that data on children was changed and misreported in the Lancet.
On an other issue the BMJ state they do not have any contact with the Lancet parents yet Brian Deer had their names on his web-site long before the GMC trial when the study was blinded so who gave him the names of the children? The study was blinded and the names of the children removed to protect them.
Brian Deer comes out with other bits of information taken out of context on blogs which could only come from medical notes on the children and not said in the GMC hearing.
The decision was made to destroy these good doctors before the GMC hearing began even at the expense of sick children who do not have a voice or money to fight back.
If anybody has any ideas of helping to set up a fighting fund let me know.
Posted by: Isabella Thomas | November 24, 2011 at 05:22 AM
Nothing wrong in people chatting at vaccine conferences but how much are they paid and is this Deer fellow a reflection of the level of science in vaccines as the KEYNOTE SPEAKER?
Re-invigorating Immunisation Policy
at the Fondation Mérieux Conference Centre “Les Pensières” Veyrier-du-Lac - France
November 21-23, 2011
Keynote lecture:
MMR-Money, Media and Retrospection. What drove the MMR crisis and what lessons should we
learn for the future Brian DEER
Communicating risk around vaccination
Publice percetion of vaccination by Michelle BASKET should this be Public Perception?
Conspiracies, groups and norm by Seth KALICHMAN
The anti-vaccination movement: a question of not seeing the trees for the wood by Stuart BLUME
Not sure what trees and wood have to do with vaccines?
http://www.fondation-merieux.org/documents/en/conferences/2011/re-invigorating-immunization-policy-implementation-and-success-21-23-november-2011-programme.pdf
Repeat vaccines GIVE ANAPHYLAXIS
3 vaccines for GARDASIL etc etc etc.
Charles Richet vaccine science of a HUNDRED YEARS ago
Today we see the new scientific "peak" of Brian Deer Journalist and long time professional expert and researcher of vaccine issues and personalities and now a KEYNOTE player as well.
Comeback Charles, all is forgiven!
Posted by: John Fryer | November 24, 2011 at 04:52 AM
@Jenny Allan
Deer Brian's monstrous scribblings, to the BMJ and beyond, make a truly fascinating study in diabolical psychology. It would be endlessly amusing if it were not all so serious. The pathological material offered by Deer, and those other little monsters at the BMJ, must provide endless amusement for the worldwide forensic fraternity of psychologists and psychiatrists.
Posted by: Mark Struthers | November 24, 2011 at 04:22 AM
the twitter feed for this #vaxpolicy had some interesting insights into the discussions
"patient information on package inserts seems designed to terrify . how do we counter this "
"people Perceive vaccine information as propaganda"
"Carefully targeted campaigns may generate less suspicion than mass population ones"
and the conference concluded with this rather optimistic tweet from a PR guru
"Need for the industry to be genuinely open and transparent because there can be no trust without this - in the conclusions of #vaxpolicy "
Posted by: mark | November 24, 2011 at 03:22 AM
Brian Deer's latest BMJ Rapid Response seems to drop one of his own quoted 'experts' in the sh*t.
"Five ileocolonic biopsy series from age-matched and site-matched controls whose reports showed histologically normal mucosa were obtained for comparison."(From the original 1998 Lancet Wakefield et al paper)
From Deer's BMJ Response, (with my comments!):-
http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d6823?tab=responses
BD "The paper acknowledged Paola Domizio of the London hospital (not the Royal Free) for controls, but she denies the methods described. Not an author":-
Me- So how can Paola Domizio possibly have known ANYTHING about the methods used by the researchers at the Royal Free? Her involvement was simply to provide the control tissue samples.
BD "She says she supplied ten, not five, normal biopsies."
Me - It is normal practice for researchers to requisition more control tissue samples than are actually used. This is because some samples might prove to be unsuitable for comparison purposes.
BD (The biopsy samples were)"unspecified for age or site"
Me - OMG!! This is just plain WRONG. I have worked in a medical research lab, albeit long ago. The researchers would have been VERY SPECIFIC in their request to Paola Domizio, and would certainly have asked for age matched tissue samples from specific named intestinal regions. For Deer to state that these samples were not even labelled for their intestinal origins, or the age of the person sampled, reflects VERY BADLY on Paola Domizio. I would be willing to bet that she is FUMING right now as a result of Deer’s ridiculous assertions!!
BD "and a draft of the paper confirms her figure. In any event, the right controls would have been from constipated neurotypical children, not selection-biased, pristine samples"
Me - OMG again! This just demonstrates Deer's COMPLETE IGNORANCE about scientific research procedures and the role of control samples in particular. Deer is talking ‘through his silly head’ about ‘right’ controls coming from constipated neurotypical children! In other words, Deer seems to think that constipated autistic children should be used as controls to compare with... er... constipated autistic children!!
As Brian Deer says on his BMJ Rapid Response to Lewis, 'You couldn't make this up.' The BMJ Editors should tell Deer to 'zip it' before the sh*t engulfs them too!! But maybe it's already too late. The sh*t is already hitting the fan!!
Deer also mentions the Loch Ness Monster! He seems to have a bit of a fixation with 'monsters' as his Guardian blog testifies. The locals living beside Loch Ness are all aware that the Loch Ness Monster is alive and kicking and eats Deer for it's breakfast!!
Posted by: Jenny Allan | November 24, 2011 at 01:12 AM
Brian Deer has coined the phrase "constipated neurotypical" and I am finally convinced that he has personal knowledge of what a "constipated neurotypical" really is.
Posted by: Benedetta | November 23, 2011 at 11:02 PM
Dan, I sincerely love your comment. The visual was AWESOME. John, you are most profoundly excellent. And may I just also observe the wit and wisdom of A of A commentators?!?! Spec. tacular. Happiest of Thanksgivings! Best, lj
Posted by: LJ Goes | November 23, 2011 at 10:51 PM
F**king hypocrites.
Posted by: Twyla | November 23, 2011 at 09:50 PM
Deer constantly confesses about his own character, actions and conflicts, only he does it in the form of accusations against others. There's a bit of a "catch me if you can" pathology to the whole thing, sort of like cat burglers who compulsively shit at the scene of the crime.
Posted by: Gatogorra | November 23, 2011 at 08:38 PM
Has anyone snapped up the film rights to the nightmare comedy unfolding before our eyes? Kubrick, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, and John Cleese couldn't make this stuff up if locked in a wine cellar for a week.
Posted by: Dan E. Burns | November 23, 2011 at 08:18 PM
Addendum
I missed while I was writing this the curious fact that while Deer's recent letter to BMJ appeared at some time after midday on Wednesday it is dated as published on Sunday. Presently BMJ are sowing much confusion with their correspondence by mixing up the hour of submission with that of publication, which means that unfavoured posts never get to the top of the stack (if they get published at all).
Posted by: John Stone | November 23, 2011 at 08:13 PM