By Dan Olmsted

The idea that Andy Wakefield is a fraud is the quick-and-dirty way to dismiss anyone with vaccine safety concerns. I was reminded of that on a couple of fronts this week. An Age of Autism reader who wrote Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California to support vaccine choice just received this reply:

“I understand that many parents are also concerned that vaccines may cause autism. This claim was published in 1998, in an article in the Lancet, a British medical journal. The researcher who authored the article was later found to have deliberately falsified data to produce a fraudulent link ..."

The source of the "fraud" claim, the British Medical Journal, decided to remind everyone of that 2012 report this week. In a "Dear Colleagues" letter, BMJ Clinical Director for North America Carolyn Wong Simpkins wrote that in the current measles outbreak, "we are seeing the sad consequences of parents opting out of these [vaccine] benefits. But do you remember the origins of the rumors attempting to connect the MMR vaccine with autism? It began with a research paper—later retracted—from investigators at a London medical school, but soon spread fear, guilt, and now the resurgence of a nearly eradicated infectious disease across the globe.

"In 2011, The BMJ published an in-depth, three-part investigation that described the problems with data corruption and bias in the original paper. As we move forward, and encourage parents to vaccinate their children, I think it’s important to revisit this history and remember the detrimental effects that fraudulent data can have on the health of the global population, and the importance of championing transparency, integrity, and scientific literacy."

May I be permitted to interject a minor quibble here? There was no fraud! I first made that case in a 10-part series in 2012, and am recapitulating it here in the hope that someone of Feinstein's stature  might decide to look more closely before they repeat the "fraud" canard yet again.

The BMJ began its 2011 attack on Wakefield's "elaborate fraud" by claiming he altered every single one of 12 children's anonymous case histories to create a phony link between the MMR vaccine and autism. In five cases, it said, signs of autism actually began before the shot was even given.

If true, yep, that's "deliberately falsified data ... a fraudulent link" -- in a word, good old-fashioned fraud. But let's meet the claim at its strongest point and see if it holds together. That is the story of Child 11 in the case series. In the BMJ, author Brian Deer claimed Child 11's symptoms couldn't possibly have been caused by the MMR shot because they appeared “too soon” -- a full two months before the shot. Deer said the father himself spotted the "anomaly" and was deeply upset about Wakefield's deception. Wow. Gotcha! An "elaborate fraud" indeed.

 But none of that is true. 

--

Like Deer, I was able to identify the 12 Lancet families, and I set about contacting them in the months after the BMJ series was published; I eventually spoke to more of them than Deer did both in the U.S. and England, where I spent a week taking trains from Wales to Bath. I met Father 11 -- the only American case -- closest to home, at a Peet’s Coffee shop in an affluent, picture-perfect Southern California enclave.

We sat outside in the mid-60s sunshine he jokingly called “a little frosty.” A wealthy businessman who lives in a gated community nearby, he wore a light jacket emblazoned with “Cal,” for the University of California at Berkeley where he got an engineering degree. He carried a thin file folder and a spiral notebook.

 In this laid-back setting, it was hard to grasp the role he and his family have played in one of the major medical controversies of our time, one that unfolded in a foggy city 6,000 miles to the east.

 This father is Deer’s best witness among the parents of the 12 children described in the Lancet paper – in fact, his only one, the lone parent who is hostile to Wakefield, not just a little frosty, but coldly angry. His anonymous comments to Deer in the BMJ seemed to fully support its January 5, 2011, cover story: “Secrets of the MMR Scare: How the Case Against the MMR Was Fixed.”

By John Stone

In the US this week we are witnessing the replay of two years ago in the UK. The media whips up hysteria about a few cases of measles – which is usually not a serious illness - and casts Andrew Wakefield in the role of a popular villain who has caused the outbreaks to happen .  In order to get a perspective on these events it might not be necessary to recap the career and political trial of Wakefield because actually it would be impossible to locate any point at which he was in a position to influence popular US opinion against the use of MMR vaccine, whereas in the UK there was a famous TV press conference in 1998 when he offered the personal opinion that it might be safer to use single vaccines (an option at the time available through the UK’s National Health Service) rather than the triple vaccine containing three live viruses, measles, mumps and rubella.

All the present hullaballoo is not really about what Wakefield did. It is simply a ploy by a weak government and even weaker mainstream media to distract from the ever growing problem of vaccine damage and the expectation that the “CDC Whistleblower”  William Thompson will ultimately give evidence before Congress that the CDC have known all along that MMR can cause autism (which is what Wakefield feared in 1998). People should be concerned about measles like any illness, but they should be even more concerned about the ever increasing certainty of the toxic load on their children from vaccines and the sheer unaccountability of the system which mandates them while protecting the manufacturers for nearly these last 30 years from any litigation. What is really stake is not just a legislative situation which only protects the manufacturers  -  not the public, not the children – but the fact that the US’s sold out mainstream media will no longer even allow the matter to be discussed. Meanwhile the Supreme Court has pronounced vaccines to be “unavoidably unsafe”.  So they will harm you and your children but you have less and less say in the matter.

Worse, we know that the VICP (Vaccine Injury Compensation Program) has actually compensated cases where vaccines have caused autism while keeping the cases sealed so they cannot become legal precedents. HHS HRSA official admitted to both Sharyl Attkisson (at the time reporting for CBS) and David Kirby on Huffington Post:

"The government has never compensated, nor has it ever been ordered to compensate, any case based on a determination that autism was actually caused by vaccines. We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures."

While CDC director Julie Gerberding , who later left to become head of Merck’s vaccine division, told CNN of the decision to compensate Hannah Poling:

 “….. if you’re predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it [vaccination] can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism.”

However, the media have become amnesiac and none of them will report today what is matter of public record.

Ms. Amy Papagopoulos
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
One Renaissance Blvd.
Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181

12.19.14

Dear Ms. Papagopoulos,

I am writing to you concerning the death of Alexander Spourdalakis, a Chicago teenager who had severe autism and inflammatory bowel disease. A complaint was received by the Joint Commission from the autism advocacy group, Autism Is Medical (AIM), in March 2013. This was prior to his death while he was an inpatient, restrained in Loyola Hospital. As far as I am aware and to all intents and purposes, no action was taken by your organization either at that time or since, in response to this complaint.

The hospitals involved in Alex’s extraordinary mismanagement – Loyola, Gottlieb Memorial, and Lutheran - all currently hold your “Gold” seal of approval.

Alex’s harrowing story has been made into an award winning documentary, Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis? produced by Autism Media Channel (AMC; autismmediachannel.com). The documentary, which is enclosed as a DVD for you to watch, speaks for itself. This production was reported recently on ABC 7 Chicago on at http://abc7chicago.com/news/abc7-exclusive-alexs-story/439605/. From January, the DVD will be available nationwide on Amazon, and in Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, Walmart etc.

We will not let this matter rest until the safety of individuals with autism in US hospitals and their access to appropriate medical care is guaranteed. It is essential that the Joint Commission conduct a thorough investigation of these matters. Two women face life imprisonment in Cook County Jail on charges of First Degree murder, largely because of what we see as gross failings on the part of hospitals accredited by your organization. AMC will be following up on this story as it goes to trial and we will be dealing with the official response as part of that follow up. Given the public interest we will be posting this letter at autismmediachannel.com.

Thank you  

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Polly Tommey and Andrew Wakefield

Producers, Autism Media Channel

By John Stone

Just before Christmas Brian Deer made an unusual appearance in the comment columns of Huffington Post.  Why he chose to do so is a bit of a mystery though typically tasteless since the column was about the plight of British doctors driven to suicide while under investigation by the UK General Medical Council. Possibly Deer does not think enough doctors commit suicide but otherwise his intervention was decidedly off subject (besides being a come-down from the London Sunday Times and the British Medical Journal).

Deer writes:

Equally pressing reform, in my view, is needed with regard to section 35(a) of the Medical Act 1983. This allows medical practitioners to stand mute in the face of charges, and not to disclose any information.

This unique provision to protect doctors contrasts with the civil law, under which parties in litigation are required under the CPR to disclose evidence and statements of case in good time before a hearing, and the criminal law, under which police are authorised to seize such evidence as they need and those accused are directly warned that to fail to answer questions may count against them at trial.

This unwarranted protection for doctors - slipped in to the act so long ago - almost entirely derailed the Wakefield, Walker-Smith, Murch GMC case in 2010, potentially costing at least five million of doctors' money and nearly causing a substantial part of the case to be reheard.

In that case, two of the three (Walker-Smith and Wakefield) stood mute in face of charges that the practitioners' claims of ethical approval for research on uniquely vulnerable patients was false. After the prosecution closed its case, the practitioners' then announced that they never carried out any research (as they had said they had before being charged) and Walker-Smith proceeded to retrospectively diagnose what he said were clinical indications for each of the patients. This then added about a year to the length of the hearing, and threw the management of the case into chaos.

This is, of course, complete and utter nonsense, and I responded:

There was no question of Walker-Smith or Wakefield remaining mute. The paper was what it said, a review of cases seen on the basis of patient need: it never claimed to be a research paper. That was the defence. I wrote unchallenged in BMJ Rapid Responses immediately after the findings:

"The panel stated in the short version of their findings on fact read out to journalists at the GMC last month [1]:

"“The Panel has heard that ethical approval had been sought and granted for other trials and it has been specifically suggested that Project 172-96 was never undertaken and that in fact, the Lancet 12children’s investigations were clinically indicated and the research partsof those clinically justified investigations were covered by Project 162-95. In the light of all the available evidence, the Panel rejected this proposition.”

"However, it is my understanding that 162-95 was not a "project" in any normal sense but the ethical approval granted Prof Walker-Smith on his arrival at the Royal Free Hospital in September 1995 - as probably the most senior figure in British paediatric gastroenterology - to retain biopsy samples from colonoscopies for research purposes. If this is the case it would seem a basic criticism of the panel, that in reaching their view, they did not explain why this ethical permission did not obtain in this instance. We are also confronted by the oddity that the panel having concluded that the study was in fact project 172-96 then found the three doctors to be in breach of its terms at every twist and turn, instead of drawing the more obvious inference that it wasn't 172-96 at all, but an "early report" as stated."

http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/02/unexplained-puzzle-gmc-verdict-and-reponses-peter-flegg

Two years later Mr Justice Mitting accepted that Walker-Smith was not conducting research and he was exercising his clinical judgment in the best interests of the patients -clearly also Walker-Smith was ultimately responsible for all clinical decisions as well as being senior author of the paper. A more pertinent question is whether Deer when he was denouncing the doctors witheld evidence of 162-95 which he had obtained under FOI.

Unsurprisingly, challenged in this way Deer remained  “mute”. In 2010 my comment appeared under an article by Prof Trisha Greenhalgh: it was a direct challenge to Greenhalgh whose mischievous analysis  of the Wakefield Lancet paper had appeared on Deer’s website, to Brian Deer himself  and to journalist “opinion leader” Dr Ben Goldacre. Unsurprisingly, all three remained “mute”, although patently embarrassed. Five years on Deer is still …”mute”.

Managing Editors Note:  I've heard of some very popular boy band called "One Direction." I couldn't  hum a single bar of their music. No idea what they look like. But I like their name because it reminds me of the Age of Autism team. We move in ONE DIRECTION. Forward. While many around us dwell in negatives, in the past, in what's "wrong" with our community and pontificate on and write some seriously nasty gaaaaah-bage as my Mom would say in Boston, our team has been "busy, busy, busy" writing books.  Actual books that can never be rescinded, removed or retracted. Old school. BOOKS. The volume of volumes is dare I say? Voluminous!  (Humor me, it's the end of a long weekend.....) 

Special congrats to our Editor Dan Olmsted and Editor at Large Mark Blaxill on the February debut of Vaccines 2.0: The Careful Parents' Guide to Making Safe Vaccination Choices for Your Family. 

We hope that you will buy one or two, perhaps more, of these books. Yes, money is tight. But I can promise you that each and every book will help you as you work with your  loved ones with autism, as you discuss the needs of our community with medical providers and politicians and will give you hope that we will all move in ONE DIRECTION. Forward. Like a train.

Vaccines 2.0: by Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted The Careful Parent's Guide to Making Safe Vaccination Choices for Your Family


Plague by Kent Heckenlively and Dr. Judy Mikovits - One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases

The Big Autism Cover Up by Anne Dachel -  How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public

Vaccine Injuries by Louis Conte and Tony Lyons - Reveals the truth behind the controversial issue of vaccine-related injuries.

The Autism War - a Novel by Louis Conte - Tony Colletti, a good suburban cop and father of a child with autism, finds himself drawn into the controversy over the apparent but rarely acknowledged connection between childhood vaccines and autism. His quest to uncover the truth forces him to risk all he holds dear while confronting corrupt government officials, the powerful pharmaceutical industry, and disturbing elements of his own past.

The Vaccine Court by Wayne Rohde - The Dark Truth of America's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

Finding Lina by Helena Hjalmarsson - A Mother's Journey from Autism to Hope

Saving Ben: by Dan Burns A Father's Story of Autism

The Thinking Moms'  Revolution - Autism beyond the Spectrum: Inspiring True Stories from Parents Fighting to Rescue Their Children

Kent Heckenlively, Anne Dachel , Louis Conte and Wayne Rohde have been as busy as Santa's elves in 2014 writing and editing their books. It's no easy feat to publish a book. A special thank you to Tony Lyons of Skyhorse Publishing who took a risk on a kooky woman (Kim here) with three daughters with autism and published her pink book. And who from there built the very best, most informative and innfluential catalog of titles about autism.   Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted have another book coming out as well. Stay tuned.

Whether you've been naughty or nice, hang a stocking, spin a dreidel or celebrate Festivus (since we have Seinfeld on our minds), we can all welcome the New Year with a stack of books. 

Plague by Kent Heckenlively - One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases

The Big Autism Cover Up by Anne Dachel -  How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public

The Autism War - a Novel by Louis Conte - Tony Colletti, a good suburban cop and father of a child with autism, finds himself drawn into the controversy over the apparent but rarely acknowledged connection between childhood vaccines and autism. His quest to uncover the truth forces him to risk all he holds dear while confronting corrupt government officials, the powerful pharmaceutical industry, and disturbing elements of his own past.

The Vaccine Court by Wayne Rohde - The Dark Truth of America's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

Finding Lina by Helena Hjalmarsson - A Mother's Journey from Autism to Hope

The Thinking Moms'  Revolution - Autism beyond the Spectrum: Inspiring True Stories from Parents Fighting to Rescue Their Children

By Kent Heckenlively, JD

Dr. Brian Hooker, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, and attorney James Moody announced today they have  sent a complaint  by Federal Express to Dr. Harold Jaffe, Associate Director for Science at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as Dr. Don Wright, Acting Director of the Office of Research Integrity at the Department of Health and Human Services, claiming research misconduct in the 2004 paper, "Age at First Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination in Children with Autism and School-Matched Control Subjects: A Population-Based Study in Metropolitan Atlanta," which was subsequently published in the journal, Pediatrics.

The allegations are horrifying, not just for the millions of families who deal with autism on a daily basis, but for the picture it paints of a government agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), devoid of any shred of scientific integrity or what we once used to call "honor" in this country.

If these claims are shown to be true, we will be looking at nothing less than the greatest crime committed in the history of our republic, and a dark page in science which will be remembered for centuries to come.

In 2001, a group at the CDC, headed by Dr. Frank DeStefano, and including Dr. William Thompson, Dr. Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, Dr. Tanya Karapurkar Bhasin, and Dr. Coleen Boyle planned to test the hypothesis that the earlier administration of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) shot was linked to an increase in autism rates.  This research was prompted by the work of Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues, suggesting a link between autism and MMR shots, and his call for additional research to answer the question.  The CDC scientists came up with that plan and recorded it in a document dated September 5, 2001, but did not follow it because of troubling findings among certain groups.

When scientists set out to test a hypothesis they come up with a research plan.  That plan is supposed to be followed, and if for some reason it is not, there must be an explanation of why not.  It is one of the basic tenets in science.  You show EVERYTHING.  You do not CONCEAL DATA.  If there is a hell for scientists, this is the sin which sends you to the very lowest regions.

By Eben Plettner

Almost 2 months ago it was revealed that senior CDC scientist Dr. Thompson had been talking with Dr. Brian Hooker of Focus Autism on allegations that the CDC had manipulated data to avoid showing a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Since then there has been a lot of discussion of how involved Dr. Thompson really is. Was he a true whistleblower or was he a man reaching out that just got caught in the middle? Recent revelations from the legal complaint filed with the CDC have offered more insight on Dr. Thompson's involvement.

The complaint filed to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI)   See ORI Complaint pdf here) centers on evidence of malfeasance by the CDC in hiding research data showing a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. The ORI is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services that oversees research integrity in several government agencies including the CDC. These are the people that investigate research fraud and they can debar doctors and force papers to be retracted. The majority of their judgments are against university researchers, but there are cases against researchers in the government although less common.

In this ORI complaint several new pieces of information about Dr. Thompson came out.  One of the biggest ones is that Dr. Thompson had not only provided the original data set to Dr. Brian hooker, but reviewed and approved Dr. Hooker’s reanalysis paper also.

“Dr. Hooker’s paper was reviewed and approved by Dr. Thompson.”⁽¹⁾

The fact that Dr. Thompson had reviewed and approved the release of the research paper shows that he was well aware that this paper was about to be published. This makes it extremely difficult for the original publisher of the paper, Translational Neurology, to support their decision for retracting it and also raises several other questions. It was also noticed that the paper is now available on the Translational Neurology website with a simple note at the top about the retraction. The website also has a nice red button that states it as one of the most accessed papers on their website, which seems odd for a retracted piece.

Could this be that they know there is much more evidence coming out? It was previously revealed that Dr. Thompson had provided thousands of documents to Congressman Posey, this is hundreds of thousands of pages. That would take several boxes to contain. You don't just walk out of the CDC with the boxes of restricted data in a day or two, especially after a whistleblower in that department is announced, and definitely if you were the one named as the whistleblower. To have gathered this information and have “secured” it must have taken Dr. Thompson weeks if not months. So at the very least he knew the research paper was coming out and was working to save information. Not the actions of someone caught off guard.

New video from Autism Media Channel on Isolated Autism.

AMC opens up a second front on the CDC whistleblower scandal. The story of children with "isolated" autism - those the CDC predicted would be most likely victims of an MMR vaccine injury. #CDCwhistleblower #hearthiswell

Click HERE to watch the video.

By John Stone

Without commenting in detail on how Judge Scott Field sliced up Andy Wakefield’s petition against BMJ and Brian Deer it is interesting to note the line of patronage in the Texas court system. Field enjoys the endorsement of the Texas Civil Justice League Political Action Committee (TCJL)  . Represented on the committee (Board of Directors) are many of the great corporations of the world including MMR manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline in the person of Gaspar X Laca , who also enjoys the title of ‘Acct Director Govt Relations’ and has two addresses: one at GSK’s London Office  and the other in Scottsdale, Arizona  (which suggests he has less claim on the protection of the Texas court than Andy). If I understand Mr Laca’s profession correctly he is a corporate government lobbyist. Zoominfo quotes a now 16 year old report of Laca’s views (is this the most recent?):

“Glaxo-Wellcome's Senior Government Affairs Manager Gaspar Laca spoke about How to Become More Effective Advocates."If you want to become a true advocate, do it all year round."said Gaspar Laca, Senior Manger of Government Affairs at Glaxo.

“He said it is important to stay in constant communication with the elected officials.Laca suggests setting up appointments to meet with legislators or staying in touch through the mail.

“He said letters should be brief and to the point (three paragraphs will suffice).First, identify yourself as a constituent, and state whether you support or oppose a bill and then tell the lawmaker how you want them to vote.Second, state why the bill is important to you.And third, thank them.Short hand written notes are the best.

“Laca also suggests that advocates keep lawmakers informed by mailing them newspaper articles about pertinent issues.He said it is important to monitor a bill's progress and that it is easier to kill a bill than to pass one.He added that the best place to amend a bill is at the committee level.

As for public testimony, Laca recommends that it be short, direct, and factual.He said to distribute written copies of statements to committee members and if a committee member is absent, mail that person a copy of the testimony.After testifying, he said to be prepared for questions.”

TJCL PAC state as their mission:

“Texas businesses, health care providers, and trade and professional associations established the Texas Civil Justice League Political Action Committee (TCJL PAC) in 1986 for the purpose of supporting candidates for the Texas Supreme Court committed to the doctrine of judicial restraint and deference to the Legislature in matters involving new rights to sue. During that time the Court became the most plaintiff-friendly high court in the nation, earning the Wall Street Journal’s moniker, “the courthouse for the world.”

Editor's Note: I wrote this in 2006, which just shows that any idiot who was paying attention should have known a long time ago that the MMR is strongly linked to the autism epidemic. The filmmaker father I refer to whose daughter regressed immediately after the MMR is Erik Nanstiel, who recently described it powerfully in his own Hear This Well video. If you want to take an autism rate of 1 in 68 for around 4 million babies born every year in the United States, the damage done in the decade since the bogus 2004 CDC MMR study:  588,000 cases of autism. -- Dan Olmsted

WASHINGTON, June 12 (UPI) -- Dr. Andrew Wakefield, the British gastroenterologist who first raised the prospect of a link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism, is being pursued by British medical authorities.

According to the BBC: "The Independent newspaper reports that the General Medical Council will accuse Mr. Andrew Wakefield of carrying out 'inadequately founded' research. Vaccination rates fell sharply after Dr Wakefield questioned the safety of MMR, raising fears of a measles epidemic. His initial Lancet paper has since been disowned by the journal."

Let's put aside the issues surrounding the Lancet paper and concerns about a measles epidemic and go straight to the heart of the matter: Does the MMR cause autism? In other words, is Wakefield right?

After looking into the topic for more than a year, I'm very concerned that he may be -- that, especially in children whose immune systems have been rendered susceptible by any number of possible exposures, the combined live-virus vaccine has its fingerprints all over numerous cases of regressive autism.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2006/06/13/The-Age-of-Autism-But-is-Wakefield-right/UPI-62041150213395/#ixzz3ClkYgSwb

By Dan Olmsted

There’s a certain bleak satisfaction in watching the fortress of vaccine injury denial start to crumble, evidenced by wilder and wilder theories designed to patch together the remnants of “the science is settled … study after study” argument, now that the science is unsettled and study after study starts to look like lie after lie.

On C-SPAN, at the National Press Club, on PBS and the major networks and print outlets, they are still running off the old karma, but the new paradigm is about to catch up with them. I hope they enjoy these last late summer days in the bully pulpit ridiculing anyone who notices the reality about to crash down on them.

Over at Respectful Insolence, “Orac” is obsessing over whether CDC whistleblower William Thompson actually sent Andy Wakefield (and his wife, Carmel) apologetic texts. Never mind what Thompson said in his own statement, or was captured on audio by Brian Hooker. No, the screen grab must be a fake!

“But something about that text exchange, more specifically the image of that text exchange, bothered me. It even bothered some antivaccinationists, because I saw complaints about it. Why is it a photo of an iPhone? Doesn’t Andy even know how to take a screen shot on his iPhone?”

It goes on from there. “Notice how in Andy’s screenshot, the word “Back” appears by the arrow in the upper left hand corner. Notice how, in mine, the word “Messages” appears in the upper left hand corner. That’s what had been bugging me when I first looked at the screenshot and it didn’t look quite right to me! I had finally put my finger on it!”

In the comments section, Orac’s thesis doesn’t hold up very well – even Brian Deer doubts it! This causes Orac to add an editor’s note allowing the possibility of error and adding: “Unlike AoA and other antivaccine groups, if I am wrong about something, I will admit it and discuss what might have led me to an incorrect conclusion.”

Wow. Even an occasion for admitting error becomes an opportunity for pointing out our supposed failings! I did send Andy a text before we ran our article about Thompson’s comments, here:

Now, exactly why my last text about being a fraud not going through is unknown to me. Maybe Orac interfered with it or God Herself decided that since Andy really is a fraud, no transmission casting doubt on it will be allowed. Or maybe because I was driving around in Illinois and the especially high corn this year interfered.

Andy Wakefield may not know how to take a screen shot of his iPhone. The last time I saw him with one, it had been run over in the parking lot where he dropped it before we went in for dinner, and, while the screen was good and cracked, he kept using it. And my last text to Andy may simply have failed to transmit.

One way or another, though, the message is starting to get through: Andy is not the fraud here. He is not the one who is killing babies, in Bill Gates’ memorable formulation of the issue.

--

Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.

Age of Autism has confirmed the veracity of this text message  from #CDCwhistleblower Dr. William Thompson to Dr. Andrew J. Wakefield.



AJW: "Is the press release real?"

WT: "Yes"

AJW:  Thank you. This was the right and honorable thing to do. Andy.

WT:  I agree. I apologize again for the price you paid for my dishonesty.

AJW: I forgive you complete and without any bitterness.

WT: I know you mean it and am grateful to know you more personally.

(We are grateful to Celia Farber and  her Truth Barrier website where the message was first published.)

"There is biological plausibility to say right now that thimerosal causes autism-like features."   View the video here.  Use #CDCWhistleblower if you share on social media.

CDC Whistleblower on Thimerosal in Pregnant Women from Autism Media Channel on Vimeo.

Editor's Note -- From our friends at Autism Media Channel. CDC whistleblower is being identified as William Thompson, an author of the paper on timing of MMR vaccination and risk of autism. -- Dan Olmsted.

CDC's "SNOWDEN" IDENTITY REVEALED

SENIOR GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST BREAKS 13 YEARS OF SILENCE ON CDC’S VACCINE-AUTISM FRAUD

AFRICAN AMERICAN BOYS WILLFULLY EXPOSED TO HIGH RISK OF AUTISM FROM MMR VACCINE 

AUTISMMEDIACHANNELEXCLUSIVE

Watch The Video: 5:00 mark.

 

By Teresa Conrick

I have been reading and writing about the microbiome quite a lot so it was inspiring to be able to hear Dr. Andrew Wakefield discuss vaccine safety issues, autism and the microbiome here in Chicago earlier this year.  Dr. Wakefield was presenting along with Dr. Ashly Ochsner, BS, DC, a popular, local Chiropractor, whose practice, Health From Within, treats many patients with an autism diagnosis. Marcella Piper-Terry, parent, activist, FB friend to many, and the heart and soul of VaxTruth, was also a presenter, discussing her own personal journey and the many parents along the way who have had children injured by vaccines.

We listened about the epidemic numbers of kids receiving an autism diagnosis and other chronic diseases.  We cried when Dr. Wakefield showed a photo of a boy, bloody and bruised by his own self-injurious behavior (SIB), who had the most severe case of autism that Dr.Wakefield had ever seen.  He described how the boy received a GI scope and lesions were seen everywhere.  The amount of pain would have had us all on the floor screaming for help, Dr. Wakefield described, but the boy was nonverbal and he could not tell of his plight.  His SIB was not some kind of psychotic display but his reaction to pain -- “the amount of pain probably had this boy almost suicidal.”  He then explained how the boy was put on a special diet and received medical treatments and medications to stop the inflammation and pain.  He was getting better but then the local doctors stopped it.  We have heard this scenario before.  An autism diagnosis often means psychotropic drugs and for a child like this, often restraints. The word, AUTISM, historically has meant a BRAIN issue, thus PSYCHIATRIC only and that’s what happened to this boy.  They stopped his medical care, and his pain and SIB returned.  The insanity of that is just too horrific. 

Dr Wakefield also described how for years parents were told that there was NO CONNECTION to GI issues and autism.  Many were treated as if they were crazy or had munchausen syndrome by proxy,  the most bizarre excuse that psychiatry ever invented.  Yet here we are now, with study after study showing that there is MUCH EVIDENCE of GI issues and autism:

Autism Gastro Problems May Be Linked To Gut Bacteria  

Gastrointestinal issues in autism spectrum disorder.

Autism Linked To Digestive Problems 

By Anne Dachel

You can't bring up the link between vaccines and autism without hearing about a paper published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, in 1998.  The author was the much vilified doctor, Andrew Wakefield, and for the sixteen years, the media has blamed the controversy over vaccines and autism on Dr. Wakefield, (and of course, "former Playboy bunny," Jenny McCarthy). 

(I just finished my book, The Big Autism Cover-Up, and the second chapter is all about how the press made Wakefield into the fall guy for linking vaccines and autism.)

The media loves to tell us about how Wakefield produced a fraudulent study and lost his medical license, conveniently leaving out the details--like the fact that parents came to him for help because he's a gastroenterologist and their kids had bowel disease--which they developed along with autism after receiving the MMR vaccine. I have never seen coverage where a member of the press actually talked to even one of the 12 parents Wakefield wrote about.  No one wants to hear the truth about his work.  No reporter ever mentions the fact that the British government indemnified the MMR maker, so it would be the government that would have to take responsibility for the damage done, something that would be a huge incentive for them to attack this man.

Dr. Wakefield is a hero to the autism community. He does not quit. There are lots of doctors who know what vaccines are really doing to our children, but they remain silent. It takes a special kind of courage to stand by the truth and have your career and your reputation destroyed. Wakefield has been a constant presence at the annual Autism One Conference in Chicago since its beginning and this year's talk, the Legacy of Vaccine Injury, was empowering for the parents who were there.

While the media continues the pretense that all the science is in and parents should have no fears about vaccinating their children, Wakefield is out there challenging both the claims of vaccine safety and efficacy. And he's not going away. Despite the fact that, as he said, he's a "disenfranchised" scientist, he talked about his current work in filmmaking.  He's out to educate parents who are new to the controversy, but none-the-less worried.  He has, as he said, "the most extraordinary stories to tell."  Films are a most important medium because, according to Wakefield, the story of just one person has more of an impact than talking about what happened to a million people. It "can persuade the agnostic."

Wakefield made it clear that while the vaccine makers continue to promote their products, the tide is turning against them.

"The pharmaceutical industry has spent $30 billion a year on promoting vaccines.  They should have saved their money because they've failed. They've failed. In a recent poll, U.S. adults who believe vaccines cause autism rose from 18 percent in 2011 to 29 percent today.  There's 33 percent of all parents with children under 18.  In polling terms, . . . that is a massive proportion of the American public. In a National Consumer League poll, 76 percent believe that it was their prerogative to decide how and if their children should be vaccinated.  And the harder the other side pushes, the more mandates they impose, the more things they take away, such as exemptions, the more they force the people of this country to bow to their will, the more resistance they will meet.  And they don't understand that. They do not get yet that they have wasted their time and money. . . . They've paid a fortune to public relations companies."  

By John Stone

“Not a convincing job Prof Reiss. What you are ducking is that the central 172-96 allegation (made originally by Mr Deer) was a fabrication without a scrap of documentary evidence -if you really want to brandish it around as still valid please say so. I note, btw, many of the other findings against Wakefield hinge on this central one, not to mention the highly prejudicial nature of the hearing that could make such grotesque errors.”

The above paragraph at the time of writing – more than 24 hours after it was posted is the culmination of an exchange in the Forbes blog in which Andrew Wakefield’s principal accuser Brian Deer made a now rare appearance last week. It seems even prolific vaccine lobby polemicist and blogger Prof Dorit  Rubinstein Reiss was lost for words: Deer’s key allegation against Wakefield and his two Royal Free Hospital colleagues Profs John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch – the subject of his first hidden denunciation to the United Kingdom’s General Medical Council, three days after his first article in the Sunday Times in February 2004  - was proving indefensible. Pinned down – even with the perpetual game of innuendo that there was something in it despite Mr Justice Mittings High Court ruling two years ago – she disappeared into the ether.

The answer is that it is time for them to stop pretending: Deer can’t answer it (he disappeared when things got hot last week) and Reiss – the vaccine industry’s main apologist - can’t answer it. The GMC hearing against Wakefield, Walker-Smith and Murch was a fraud and a farrago. If anyone wants to defend those findings now they deserve to be laughing stocks. The investigation and hearing took more than six years and it is a heap of proven bureaucratic lies. That is the inescapable conclusion.

Below is the sequence of letters which began with an intervention from the excellent David Foster:

David Foster

Brian Deer I have to ask, did it ever occur to you that it might have been a good idea, indeed even ethically responsible, to announce the fact that it was in fact you that submitted the initial complaint about Wakefield to the GMC?

You submitted the complaint, and then proceeded to cover the story representing yourself as an objective, dispassionate journalist. None of those three words describe you sir. You propelled your own career while covering a story you helped to initiate, based on a series of lies and misrepresentations that you continue to pile on even today.

And while I am at it, how do you explain your unprecedented access to highly sensitive medical records? You have made several and various claims about this, and within these comments pages you claim that you worked with BMJ to obtain the records. Now why would it be ethical for either you OR another professional journal to have access to children’s medical records? And how do you explain the complaints from some of the parents of the children who were studied in Wakefield’s 1998 Lancet paper, who said that you misrepresented your identity when interviewing them?

You are very lucky for now, in that the medical establishment on both sides of the Pond have a vested interest in propping up your fantasies as fact, and supporting your conclusions. But history and truth both have a way of flushing out the rats, and you sir will be swimming soon enough.

 jgc56

One has to ask: what point are you trying to make here? If Brian Deer had announced that he had initally brought Wakefield’s unprofessional conduct to the attention of the GMC, would Wakefield be any less guilty of committing those offenses? Would the retracted 1998 Lancet paper somehow become something other than an instance of scientific fraud?

John Stone

jgc56: Simple answer is yes. The findings of the GMC were flawed and they were based on Deer’s allegations, reporting and conflicts (which were shared by the GMC). There are perfectly good reasons why certain basic journalistic ethics ought to be observed and the question why they were not is totally germane. To begin with was the allegation about the paper being the LAB project which was Deer’s first complaint (undisclosed), it was supported by the GMC prosecutors and panel but without citing any material evidence. The charge was against all three doctors and in 2012 it was dismissed by Mr Justice Mitting in the High Court. It should never have happened and the whole process was tainted and untrustworthy. Worth mentioning that the head of panels at the GMC, Dr Harvey Marcovitch, was also the alleged external peer reviewer of Deer’s 2011 BMJ articles against Wakefield although a BMJ editor as well. All roads lead to Rome, as it were.

By John Stone

In the hubbub which followed Andrew Wakefield’s threat to sue Emily Willingham and Forbes Magazine Brian Deer thought he would take a bow in its on-line pages  . As ever what immediately strikes is the lack of integrity of a scientific establishment which rests its case on the allegations of this unfortunate figure. As usual confronted by criticism all Deer can do is duck and weave and call his critics “malignant cranks” (of course there a few other things he’s called us over the years, but this is not a gentleman with much finesse). This is the man who makes a meal of the fact that his vastly more qualified critic Dr David Lewis, as a leading scientist in the Environmental Protection Agency had worked on issues of the safety of sewage disposal. In what should be a serious exchange of views in supposedly august scientific journals like Nature  and the British Medical Journal Deer is allowed to use this fact to disparage him: the Nature letter was removed last year after further complaints, the BMJ one stands with the title ‘MMR and human waste disposal’, but did it not used to read ‘MMR and Human Waste’ ? The man is protected by very powerful people. He is a pharmaceutical VIP .

Last week I called upon him – under his nose -  to justify certain things and as usual he just ran leaving the lesser surrogates of the government pharmaceutical complex to cover his back. People like Matt Carey, Dorit Reiss and Este Banes (the new version of fraudulent Prof Reuben Gaines). Hadn’t Deer, the editor of BMJ, Fiona Godlee, and their advisor Prof Ingvar Bjarnason already been forced to admit in Nature that there no basis in the claim of fraud over the biopsies for the children in the Lancet paper ?

“But he (Bjarnason) says that the forms don’t clearly support charges that Wakefield deliberately misinterpreted the records. “The data are subjective. It’s different to say it’s deliberate falsification,” he says.

“Deer notes that he never accused Wakefield of fraud over his interpretation of pathology records…

“Fiona Godlee, the editor of the BMJ, says that the journal’s conclusion of fraud was not based on the pathology but on a number of discrepancies between the children’s records and the claims in the Lancet paper…”

No answer.

Was not the claim (made by Deer in his first letter of complaint against Wakefield, Walker-Smith) that the Wakefield Lancet paper was commissioned by the Legal Aid Board and based on their protocol in itself fraudulent, and disproven the High Court appeal of Walker-Smith?

No answer.

Had he not made three formal complaints to the GMC against the three doctors and come to a mutually beneficial agreement that he not be named as complainant, thus enabling to continue reporting without the public knowing about his conflict?

No answer.

The Texas court have now been deliberating on Andrew Wakefield’s appeal over the court’s jurisdiction in his defamation case against Deer, Godlee and the BMJ for a year. Who knows what is holding the court which originally said it would report back within six months ? What is certain is that if this crew wriggle away it will not serve justice (we have seen their ridiculous pretexts that the BMJ do not do business in the US’s second largest state and they did not realise that Wakefield lived there ). To the best of my knowledge there is still no date named.

 Ms. Emily Willingham

Forbes Magazine

60 Fifth Avenue,

New York, NY 10011.

04.30.14

Re:       Malicious defamation of Dr. Andrew Wakefield

Without prejudice

Dear Emily Willingham,

            It has been brought to my attention that on or about April 30, 2014, Forbes ran an online article authored by you entitled, “Blame Wakefield For Missed Autism-Gut Connection.” The article can be found online at:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2014/04/30/blame-wakefield-for-missed-autism-gut-connection/

In this letter you made demonstrably false and misleading claims that have the effect of defaming me. Your false and defamatory statements are reckless, stated without due regard to the available evidence, and malicious. Accordingly, pending review by my lawyers, you will be sued for defamation.

            Specifically, your article states, as a matter of fact that:

Wakefield’s MMR/autism/gut red herring and the subsequent noxious cloud that his fraud left over any research examining autism and the gut.

            In making this false and malicious allegation of fraud, you erroneously ascribe the above statement to a “cite” from the authors of an article published in the medical journal Pediatrics when you write:

Well, the Pediatrics review by McElhanon et al. happens to cite that reason several times: Wakefield’s MMR/autism/gut red herring and the subsequent noxious cloud that his fraud… The Pediatrics authors state it unequivocally:

Panelists Rolf Hazelhurst, autism parent and attorney,  Jim Moody, attorney, Aidan Quinn, autism parent and actor, Rob Schneider,  autism parent and comedian, Mike  Guido, autism parent and comedian,  Jeanna Reed, autism parent, co-founder Autism Is Medical, and moderators Dr. Andrew Wakefield and Jill Rubolino, autism parent, co-founder Autism Is Medical sharing their experience with autism and regression post vaccination in a powerful and poignant way at the Give Autism a Chance conference in Austin, TX on April 12, 2014. Dr. Andrew Wakefield moderates the panel with his British aplomb and even handed determination.  "Welcome to the calm, quiet world of autism and vaccines. Hello to the trolls online."   Classic Brit wit.

View more videos at The U-Stream channel.

The video of the autism vaccine panel starts at 2:39 minutes.  There's plenty to watch before that start, however. Enjoy.


Video streaming by Ustream
The panel continues here:

Video streaming by UstreamAlso, from Give Autism a Chance: Our amazing #GAAC live stream was produced by Light Strike Productions in association with Blind Monk Productions. Huge thanks to Jeremy and Roderick for a top notch production. Videos are still available for viewing at www.ustream.tv/theautismtrustusa
To reach our video team directly, visit their websites at:
http://www.lightstrikeproductions.com/ and
http://blindmonk.com/

By John Stone

An incident on a CNN blog on Friday morning revealed how sensitive the news channel could be about arguing with the official dogma surrounding Andrew Wakefield. When the present writer – posting at breakfast UK time and the middle of the night Eastern  - contested the fraud allegations repeated in an op ed piece by Frank Y. Wong, an associate professor at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University   the news channel responded with blocking  tactics. Pointing to the exoneration of Wakefield’s senior colleague and author, Prof John Walker-Smith, in the British high court two years ago, I was immediately countered by a poster called “Tony” quoting paragraphs from the Wiki entry on Andrew Wakefield. I then found that my next response went straight into moderation never to see the light of day and a similar comment forwarded to me by an acquaintance was also blocked by the same method. All this happened within a very few minutes although it was the middle of the night in the US. The page now reveals that no less than nine responses to “Tony” were deleted  (presumably all before publication). When I subsequently commented elsewhere on the blog there was no block: it was specific to this comment.

The Wiki entry on Andrew Wakefield has a pharmaceutical Praetorian guard surrounding it preventing it from ever being corrected, and plainly CNN realised that they were on to a loser if this discussion continued. My deleted comment read:

 But this is a flawed account. The findings were confirmed by both histopathologists in the paper subsequent to the hearing (here and here)

When the Deer/BMJ findings came under the scrutiny of Dr David Lewis in November 2011 they were forced to re-trench (reported in Nature):

“But he (Bjarnason) says that the forms don't clearly support charges that Wakefield deliberately misinterpreted the records.

"The data are subjective. It's different to say it's deliberate falsification," he says.

“Deer notes that he never accused Wakefield of fraud over his interpretation of pathology records…

“Fiona Godlee, the editor of the BMJ, says that the journal's conclusion of fraud was not based on the pathology but on a number of discrepancies between the children's records and the claims in the Lancet paper…”

Although Godlee had previously stated in February 2011:

“The case we presented against Andrew Wakefield that the1998 Lancet paper was intended to mislead was not critically reliant on GP records”. 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."

Here we have another great interview with Coy Barefoot. Earlier this week we brought you his interview with AofA's Mark Blaxill. Great to see Dr. Wakefield here. Enjoy.

GUEST: Dr. Andy Wakefield, physician, medical researcher, and author of Callous Disregard and Waging War on the Autistic Child.

TOPIC:  Coy Barefoot talks to the British physician who was vilified, demonized and attacked from all sides, and who sparked a firestorm of controversy over vaccines, autism and public health.

ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE:  Tuesday, January 14, 2014.

LISTEN HERE

A New York based foundation is MATCHING EVERY DOLLAR RAISED, UP TO $150,000! Lets make a movie that blows the lid off Monsanto, Big Pharma and Vaccines!

Indiegogo Fund Raising for BOUGHT HERE.

About

Bought is a film about the issue of health being sold out from underneath individuals through big pharmaceutical companies, dangerous vaccinations and a food supply chain contaminated by the use of GMO’s. Jeff Hays started Capstone Entertainment in the mid-nineties and built a production/distribution company to a multi-million dollar level and won numerous awards in children’s programming. One of Jeff’s most notable films was Fahrenhype 9/11, which he produced in 2004 featuring Ron Silver, Dick Morris, Senator Zell Miller, Mayor Ed Koch and others. This film generated millions in revenue and was widely accepted by the public and received positive reviews from the NY Times, Variety and other media. In 2005, Jeff produced On Native Soil where he was short-listed for an Academy Award. He also produced My Workout on Lifetime Television for a year and most recently released Doctored which has already sold over 150,000 copies. Bought is currently scheduled to be released Spring 2014. For more information go to http://www.SupportBoughtMovie.com or contact Renee Stewart at 866.519.5445 or rstewart@TabooPublicRelations.com.




Jeff Hays  announced that principal photography has begun on the new documentary film – Bought. A new crowd funding campaign at indiegogo.com has an early trailer. Bought is a film dedicated to uncovering, exposing and highlighting the facts all individuals have a right to know. Andrew Wakefield may have been credited for the global awakening of the potential relationship between MMR vaccinations and autism, which has been highly controversial and debated heavily, but Bought is committed to uncovering the facts so each person can make the decision that is right for him or her.

Landmark cases have been won this year in U.S. Vaccine Court, granting families of autistic children financial awards for the damage caused to their children by vaccinations. For the first time ever, several of these families have agreed to be interviewed on camera, and let their stories be heard publicly.

“Andrew Wakefield has a role in this film because there is new evidence that has been uncovered that suggests his findings were correct. The media has tried him and virtually ruined his reputation. I’m here to expose the facts because I believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, it appears much of the medical/industrial/governmental machine is about sacrificing a few, for the supposed greater good of others,” said Jeff Hays, producer of Bought. “We intend to ignite a national conversation that involves parents nationwide and stirs the curiosity of millions. I want to ignite that innate portion of our human instinct that is designed to question and ultimately protect each of us from harm. I know this is controversial, and it should be. The days of just accepting what the medical community, the media and the government say should be gone.” 

The American Academy of Pediatrics says that vaccines work, that vaccines are safe, and that vaccines are necessary. Yet:

 Over 5,000 cases alleging a causal relationship between vaccinations and autism have been filed under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in the US Court of Federal Claims between 2001 and 2009

The US Court of Federal Claims Office of Special Masters, between 1988 and 2009, has awarded compensation to 1,322 families whose children suffered brain damage from vaccines
   
Over $2 billion dollars has been awarded to families who have been injured or killed by vaccine reactions by this “Vaccine Court.”

About 30,000 cases of adverse reactions to vaccines have been reported annually to the federal government since 1990, with 13% classified as serious, meaning associated with permanent disability, hospitalization, life-threatening illness or death.

By Dan Olmsted

The cynically named Autism Science Foundation -- created to exclude scientific examination of the root cause of the autism epidemic, namely excessive vaccinations -- has been forced to apologize to the Devil himself.

Its Web site now says: "On a previous version of this page, the allegations contained in a lawsuit brought by Andrew Wakefield were inadvertently mischaracterized as conclusions of the court.  We regret this error."

ASF factotum Alison Singer also sent Andy an e-mail this week: "As you know, we previously removed the content about which you complained.  We have also posted a statement on our website apologizing for the error.  We trust this brings the matter to a close.  Alison"

The backstory is explained HERE. Needless to say, anything that makes Andy look bad is good for the Singer/Offit crowd. Unfortunately for them, the truth is a different matter.

And the truth is this: The bloated U.S. vaccine schedule harms kids far worse than the diseases it purports to prevent. That includes the MMR, as Andy has demonstrated.

--

Another bit of good news this week: Army Special Operations has finally pulled the plug on a drug the Army invented that has caused its soldiers to kill civilians -- right before they kill themselves.

The document, USASOC Mefloquine Instruction, orders its medical personnel to "immediately cease the prescribing and use" of Lariam for malaria prevention. The order cites recent changes from the FDA in the drug's product label that warn of long-term psychiatric and nerve problems. It also tells personnel to be on the lookout for such long-lasting problems, which can be mistaken for PTSD. (In other words, a significant percentage of "PTSD" is actually longterm Lariam toxicity, a manmade problem from hell if there ever was one.)

This is unalloyed good news, another day of reckoning for what retired Army Major Dr. Remington Nevin warned could be "the Agent Orange of our Generation." . But it also represents a systemic and deliberate failure by the FDA, CDC and military to respond to more than a decade of convincing evidence that the drug was doing that and much worse, including triggering homicidal behavior and suicide.

In September 2004, Mark Benjamin and I at UPI wrote an article about Special Operations soldiers  titled, "Malaria drug links elite soldier suicides." It began: "A startling pattern of violence and suicide by America's most elite soldiers has followed their use of a controversial anti-malaria drug," an investigation by United Press International and CNN has found.

Based on our reporting, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said: "The Department of Defense, and all other agencies that give this drug, should immediately reassess their decision to use this drug and look for alternatives."

Note: At last report, Ms. Singer indicated that she would remove the content from the ASFwebsite  until such time as she returned from vacation and had direction from counsel.  Screen shots of the letter are below the verbiage and you can read this letter in pdf form HERE.

Ms. Alison Singer, Director
Autism Science Foundation
28 West 39th Street, Suite #502,
New York, NY 10018       

August 20, 2013

Dear Ms. Singer,
 
Re: Malicious defamation of Dr. Andrew Wakefield by the Autism Science Foundation. Without prejudice

    I am writing to you in light of false and highly misleading, reckless, and defamatory statements made about me on the website of the Autism Science Foundation of which, according to your website, you are a Director. These statements have been brought to my attention today, August 20, 2013.

    The offending statements are to be found at www.autismsciencefoundation.org/autismandvaccines.html. For the purpose of litigation, the relevant pages have been captured.

    Specifically, I refer to your lead article that, since it is the first hit to come up when one performs a Google search on “Autism+Vaccines”, is likely to have been heavily promoted to the public by you and/or your sponsors.  

    I refer to your article “Autism and Vaccines”; subheading  “History of the Issue”, paragraph 4. You cite from a hearing in the English Courts, the specific purpose of which was for Mr. Justice Eady to rule on whether or not the Claimants [Andrew Wakefield] should be allowed to stay defamation proceedings against Defendants Brian Deer, Channel 4 Television, and Twenty Twenty Productions.

    Justice Eady set out by summarizing the “words complained of” by me –  potentially defamatory words that had been made by the Defendants against me. In those “words” he deliberately “confined” himself to “identifying” my meaning. Justice Eady stated:   

“The words complained of consist of very lengthy extracts set out in the particulars of claim from the television programme. For present purposes, I do not think it necessary to replicate them in this judgment. I shall confine myself to identifying the Claimant's meanings, which were to the effect that he had:

i) Spread fear that the MMR vaccine might lead to autism, even though he knew that his own laboratory had carried out tests whose results dramatically contradicted his claims in that the measles virus had not been found in a single one of the children concerned in his study and he knew or ought to have known that there was absolutely no basis at all for his belief that the MMR should be broken up into single vaccines." 


(ii) In spreading such fear, acted dishonestly and for mercenary motives in that, although he improperly failed to disclose the fact, he planned a rival vaccine and products (such as a diagnostic kit based on his theory) that could have made his fortune.


(iii) Gravely abused the children under his care by unethically carrying out extensive invasive procedures (on occasions requiring three people to hold a child down), thereby driving nurses to leave and causing his medical colleagues serious concern and unhappiness.


(iv) Improperly and/or dishonestly failed to disclose to his colleagues and to the public at large that his research on autistic children had begun with a contract with solicitors which were trying to sue the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine.


(v) Improperly and/or dishonestly lent his reputation to the International Child Development Resource Centre which promoted to very vulnerable parents expensive products for whose efficacy (as he knew or should have known) there was no scientific evidence".

    In the offending article on your website you have deliberately, recklessly, and I believe maliciously, taken these words and presented them to the public as the conclusions of Justice Eady in relation to my alleged guilt. This is evident on any reading of what you have written. Specifically, you state:

“The following year, on October 28th, 2005, the Honorable Justice David Eady concluded  that Wakefield:”

“Spread fear that the MMR vaccine might lead to autism, even though he knew that his own laboratory had carried out tests whose results dramatically contradicted his claims in that the measles virus had not been found in a single one of the children concerned in his study¹ … In spreading such fear, [Wakefield] acted dishonestly and for mercenary motives in that, although he improperly failed to disclose the fact, he planned a rival vaccine… that could have made his fortune. [Wakefield] gravely abused the children under his care by unethically carrying out extensive invasive procedures (on occasions requiring three people to hold a child down), thereby driving nurses to leave and causing his medical colleagues serious concern. [And] improperly and/or dishonestly failed to disclose to his colleagues and to the public at large that his research on autistic children had begun with a contract with solicitors which were trying to sue the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine.”

The entire ruling can be read here: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2005/2410.html

What if Andrew Wakefield Was Right?

New film being produced by Jeff Hays and directed by Bobby Sheehan “Bought” Asks & Answers this Question and Uncovers the Hidden Facts about Vaccinations


Jeff Hays today announced that principal photography has begun on the new documentary film – Bought. A new crowd funding campaign at indiegogo.com has an early trailer. Bought is a film dedicated to uncovering, exposing and highlighting the facts all individuals have a right to know. Andrew Wakefield may have been credited for the global awakening of the potential relationship between MMR vaccinations and autism, which has been highly controversial and debated heavily, but Bought is committed to uncovering the facts so each person can make the decision that is right for him or her.

Landmark cases have been won this year in U.S. Vaccine Court, granting families of autistic children financial awards for the damage caused to their children by vaccinations. For the first time ever, several of these families have agreed to be interviewed on camera, and let their stories be heard publicly.

“Andrew Wakefield has a role in this film because there is new evidence that has been uncovered that suggests his findings were correct. The media has tried him and virtually ruined his reputation. I’m here to expose the facts because I believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, it appears much of the medical/industrial/governmental machine is about sacrificing a few, for the supposed greater good of others,” said Jeff Hays, producer of Bought. “We intend to ignite a national conversation that involves parents nationwide and stirs the curiosity of millions. I want to ignite that innate portion of our human instinct that is designed to question and ultimately protect each of us from harm. I know this is controversial, and it should be. The days of just accepting what the medical community, the media and the government say should be gone.”

Measles in the UK: a test of public health competency in a crisis
BMJ 2013; 346 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f2793 (Published 1 May 2013)

Cite this as: BMJ 2013;346:f2793

Rapid Response from Jackie Fletcher  (see the online thread at BMJ.)

In my opinion public health competency has been tested and it has unequivocally failed the British public.

The authors refer to 'Wakefield's legacy' and seem to imply that problems with MMR vaccine started with the publication of The Lancet case series report in February 1998. This is their preferred start of the MMR controversy because it is more convenient to destroy one man's character than deal with the failings of the DH policy makers.

The DH and JCVI knew before the MMR programme began in October 1988 that 2 of the 3 brands carried a risk of meningitis and the third brand was linked with neurological complications, yet they sanctioned the use of all three brands. [1] [2]

During the first week of the new MMR campaign in 1988 an eighteen month old infant was given it, started with severe convulsions and subsequently died during a seizure. This child was one of a number of children awarded Government recognition of MMR vaccine-damage through vaccine damage payments following medical assessment of the individual cases.

The two Urabe mumps containing brands were subsequently withdrawn in September 1992 after four years of use and having had an 85% share of the MMR UK immunisation programme. As mentioned, the DH and JCVI knew of the link with mumps meningitis from these brands. They also knew it was down to a chance finding due to a cluster of meningitis cases in a short period of time coming to light in a Nottingham hospital which finally led to the full exposure of the problems. The hospital had a strict policy of routinely conducting lumbar punctures whenever a child was brought in following a febrile convulsion and the Urabe mumps vaccine strain showed up in the spinal fluid samples.

And what of the Urabe mumps MMR withdrawal? Did the DH contact every doctor in the country to cross check their patient records to determine if each child who had received either of the brands was developmentally well and thriving to the same degree as before the vaccine was given? The answer is no!

By John Stone

As the smoke and mirrors operation of the bogus Welsh measles epidemic continues members of the British medical establishment are lining up to attack the reputation of Andrew Wakefield, whose defamation case against British Medical Journal and Brian Deer is hanging fire in Texas. On Sunday the UK government’s former Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, took his turn in the Observer to accuse Wakefield of junk science. But when it comes to junk science Sir Liam is something a past master himself…..

Contribute to the Dr. Wakefield Justice Fund at www.drwakefieldjusticefund.org/

From January 2010: 

Annual flu deaths in the UK averaged no more than 33 over the last 4 years despite an earlier statement by the Department of Health that 12,000 people die in the country from flu every year. Recent disclosures by out-going Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson demonstrate that such figures are fabricated to boost vaccination uptake. Quizzed in on-line British Medical Journal by deputy editor Tony Delamothe, Sir Liam posted details late on Christmas Eve.

Sir Liam and colleagues state that an:

"Estimate of ‘flu deaths is found in the annual mortality statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics. These statistics record the underlying cause of death. They are based on all registered deaths, based on the information on death certificates. The number of deaths for England & Wales with an underlying cause of influenza (ICD-10 code J10-J11) for the four recent calendar years are: 39 (2008), 31 (2007), 17 (2006) and 44 (2005). Many more deaths are attributed to pneumonia, some of which will be secondary to influenza.

However, they also give another official method of estimating flu deaths which greatly inflates the numbers in some years: 

The official estimate of influenza mortality is produced by the Health Protection Agency. It is derived from excess all-cause death registrations in the winter. When the number of all-cause death registrations rises above an ‘expected’ level in a given week, this excess is counted. The estimates for the last five years in England & Wales are: 1965 (2004-05 winter season), 0 (2005-06), 0 (2006-07), 426 (2007- 08), and 10351 (2008-09). The highest estimate in recent years was for the 1999-2000 ‘flu season, at 21,497.

It is interesting to note that in two out of five quoted recent years there was a zero figure, which means that mortality was under the projected estimate, and therefore a negative sum. Since projected mortality can only be based on average, it is inevitable that in some years it will be above and others below. The Department of Health has also tried to associate flu death with entire excess mortality for the winter season. For instance, a BBC news report with Sir Liam - which was part of the annual flu vaccine drive in 2007 - declared:

In Dr. Wakefield's fifth challenge to Dr. Salisbury to debate issues of vaccine safety, he discusses the tragic death of Christopher Coulter.

 
By John Stone

Too right!

Prof. Colin Blakemore – head of the MRC from 2003 to 2007 - is just one more member of the British medical establishment to express agitation about Andrew Wakefield   in the wake of the phony Welsh measles epidemic, reporting of which by one of many strange coincidences took off in the US media in the week of Wakefield ‘s hearing to have his case re-instated against BMJ and journalist Brian Deer in Texas.

Blakemore it should be noted became head of the Medical Research Council on 1 October 2003. On that very same day the UK Legal Services Commission, in the process of attempting to dissolve the MMR litigation announced that “All the research paid for by the LSC will be sent to the Medical Research Council who are investigating the causes of autism”.

It is by no means clear that the research was for the LSC to dispose of (as opposed to belonging to the

devastated and by then unrepresented litigant families) or that the Medical Research Council ever intended to seriously research the causes of autism (with nothing of substance a decade later to show for it), but another curious twist is that in 2004 Queen’s Counsel Sally Smith, who was to become prosecuting attorney for the GMC against Wakefield and colleagues, was appointed to the Ethics Committee of the MRC, where she remained until 2009 (by which time the GMC prosecution was virtually complete).

 

Anyhow, if Blakemore had really wanted to find the causes of autism he might have liked to consider the statement issued by officials of the US Vaccine Injury Compensation Program:

 "The government has never compensated, nor has it ever been ordered to compensate, any case based on a determination that autism was actually caused by vaccines. We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures."

Or the remarks Merck’s vaccine chief, Julie Gerberding, when she was still head of the CDC in relation to the Poling case:

Yesterday, the three judges of the Texas High Court heard the appeal over jurisdiction in the case of Andrew Wakefield against the British Medical Journal and journalist Brian Deer. The case was presented by attorney Brendan K McBride, which was felt to be well-conducted. It will now be between 1 and 6 months before the judges return their verdict.

Below is a new video from Dr. Andrew Wakefield. You can view the full series of videos at Autism Channel.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYcxIrs4oyk

Editor's Note: The judge has set May 22 for an appeal in Austin, Texas of the jurisdiction issue in Dr. Andy Wakefield's defamation suit against the British Medical Journal, Editor Fiona Godlee and "journalist" Brian Deer. The case was dismissed by a judge who said Wakefield was not entitled to sue the British publication in Texas, but Wakefield appealed.  Supporters of Dr. Wakefield will be in attendance.

See here for the latest filings, and stay tuned for updates. -- Dan Olmsted

 

 

Published on May 3, 2013

Dr. Wakefield talks about vaccine failure, the alleged corporate response, and poses further questions for Dr. Salisbury.  Please go to the YouTube page and click "like" and share the link with friends and family.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BASKGep-CH0&feature=youtu.be

Newly appointed Index-on-Censorship chairman David Aaronovitch loses on-line exchange about Wakefield and MMR in the London Times: then  it is deleted.

By John Stone

With British journalists running relays to resuscitate the dead story of the Swansea measles epidemic  the former Communist Party activist, David Aaronovitch – newly appointed chairman of the “human-rights” organisation Index-on-Censorship  -  has come off worse in an exchange with me about Andrew Wakefield and MMR in The Times of London, which was after some hours deleted.

I had written under his article:

It is very unclear that Wakefield cheated bearing in mind the complete exoneration in the High Court last [year] of the senior author and clinician in the Lancet paper Prof John Walker-Smith, who unlike Wakefield was funded to appeal. Walker-Smith was equally responsible for [the] paper and it’s reporting, and more responsible for any clinical decisions regarding the patients in it. The GMC findings, which were based on Brian Deer's allegations, cannot be considered reliable: indeed were highly flawed.

However, an over-riding problem with MMR is that irrespective of Wakefield it is used despite any scientific certainty as to safety. The conclusion in abstract of the Cochrane review of MMR in both 2005 and 2012 is:

"The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate. The evidence of adverse events following immunisation with MMR cannot be separated from its role in preventing the target diseases."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16235361
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22336803

Perhaps by some Orwellian sleight of hand "largely inadequate" for the professional has become "adequate" for the layman, but in my opinion being lulled to sleep by official truths is not being a good journalist.

To which Aaronovitch responded:

@John Stone You have a dog in this fight, John. Brian Deer's "allegations" as you call them concerned Wakefield's methods, his undeclared financial interest in single vaccinations and role as paid expert to anti-vaccination litigation, his doctoring of case histories and the ethics of his research on his subjects. And obscure the facts as much as you will, you cannot come up with credible evidence of an autism link to MMR, either correlative or causal. It would have been much better for those dealing with autism had this whole MMR farrago not distracted from the business of research into causes and help to parents.

For those who want it here is the link to Brian Deer's website…

Direct YouTube Link "Dr. Andrew Wakefield More Questions For David Salisbury"

Below is the transcript from Dr. Andrew Wakefield's video statement (with special thanks to Jeannette Bishop for correcting the text).

Good morning. The first thing that I want to say is that  I did not seek out this latest media maelstrom. It came about because of an outbreak of measles in South Wales in the United  Kingdom for which I have been blamed by her Majesty's government.  So I did not seek this out but now it seems I have been denied the  opportunity to redress the allegations that have been made against me by members of the government; by members of public health and that is clearly unacceptable.
So legitimate debate about the safety of MMR vaccine and the origin of the measles epidemic in Wales have now been effectively blocked by the government insisting that the British media do not give me air time; do not allow me to respond. And that is the purpose of this. So I did not start this current fight.
     
The important thing to say is that back in 1996 -- 1997 I was made  aware of children developing autism, regressive autism, following exposure in many cases to the measles mumps rubella vaccine. Such  was my concern about the safety of that vaccine that I went back and reviewed every safety study, every pre-licensing study of the MMR vaccine and other measles containing vaccines before they were  put into children and after. And I was appalled with the quality of that science. It really was totally below par and that has been reiterated by other authoritative sources since.

I compiled my observations into a 200 page report which I am seeking to put online once I get permission from my lawyers. And that report was the basis of my impression that the MMR vaccine was inadequately tested for safety certainly compared with the single vaccines and therefore that was the basis of my recommendation in 1998 at the press conference that parents should have the option of  the single vaccines.

All I could do as a parent was to say what would I do for my child. That was the only honest answer I could give. My position on that has not changed.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield responds to UK public health officials call for censorship on MMR vaccine safety debate, measles vaccine failure, and issues a further challenge for open debate (full transcript beneath). While he has been booked to appear on several media programs, all have cancelled just prior to airtime.

Below is the transcript.

Good morning. The first thing that I want to say is that  I did not seek out this latest media maelstrom. It came about because of an outbreak of measles in South Wales in the United  Kingdom for which I have been blamed by her Majesty's government.  So I did not seek this out but now it seems I have been denied the  opportunity to redress the allegations that have been made against me by members of the government; by members of public health and that is clearly unacceptable.
So legitimate debate about the safety of MMR vaccine and the origin of the measles epidemic in Wales have now been effectively blocked by the government insisting that the British media do not give me air time; do not allow me to respond. And that is the purpose of this. So I did not start this current fight.

 

Statement by Isabella Thomas, mother of two boys who were part of the Lancet Study

“It is now time for the truth to be told”

I, as a parent of two children in the Lancet study, have had to speak out about the vicious attacks on Dr. Andrew Wakefield by his own government, the US government and the media blaming him for the measles outbreak in Wales. The Lancet study was not paid for by the Legal Services Commission and our children were referred to the Royal Free Hospital because they were very sick and would still have had investigations done even if they were not part of the Lancet research as many more children have done after the Lancet study by other consultants at the Royal Free and other hospitals in London.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield listened to the concerns of many parents about their sick children suffering with bowel conditions and a form of Autism, a bowel condition and brain damage that was ignored by other professionals. These parents were demonstrably ‘black listed’ for saying their children became ill after the MMR vaccine.

Parents were speaking about this situation years before Dr. Wakefield came on the scene and our government also knew about these concerns years before the Lancet study yet they did nothing to investigate, leaving hundreds of other children at risk of side effects. Our government did not listen to parents but accused them of making the symptoms up and threatening to take their children away if they did not stop making a connection with MMR vaccine. As a result, these children and young adults live in a great deal of pain to this day (one doctor saying to my son ‘we believe you believe you are in pain’).

There is much more I could say about the experience of my family and others but I want to make it clear that the children’s claims in relation to MMR were supported by many other experts in several disciplines all of whom provided reports for the court. I attach a list of them. These experts would all have given evidence at the Royal Courts of Justice on behalf of hundreds of children we claim were damaged by the MMR vaccine had the cases been allowed to continue. In addition, the solicitors representing the claimants were in touch with and drawing on the expertise from many more than these, but many did not want to be formal experts. I don't know how much the experts listed were paid, but they were all paid fees just as Dr. Wakefield was in the normal way that experts are paid in litigation cases (and probably much less than the defendants’ experts were paid!).

Please read and comment on the full article Another rejection but parents maintain vaccine is linked to their son's death at The Detail.   "The Detail aims to help put investigative journalism at the core of the news industry in Northern Ireland. It aims not to challenge existing news outlets, broadcasters or newspaper, but to supplement them.

The site is run and the content produced by Belfast-based independent TV and online production company Below the Radar, which is owned by UK wide independent producer Ten Alps Plc. It is funded by Atlantic Philanthropies and Northern Ireland Screen, and it has five full-time journalists."

BY KATHRYN TORNEY

THE parents of a Co Down teenager who died just days after receiving a combined Measles and Rubella vaccination as part of a government campaign have vowed to continue their fight to prove that the injection caused his death.

Anne and Harry Coulter, from Hillsborough, have spoken to The Detail after learning that an appeal they lodged with the government’s Vaccine Damage Payments Scheme has been refused. They were first turned down for compensation in 1997 and say the system is massively weighted against those who challenge the UK’s vaccination regime.

Please read the full story Another rejection but parents maintain vaccine is linked to their son's death at The Detail.

From the Child Health Safety site in the UK comes this post,  Dr Andrew Wakefield Not Cause of Welsh Measles Outbreak – Confirms UK Government Minister In Parliament.

It looks like British Health Minister Earl Howe has put egg over the faces of the British media regarding their claims that Dr Andrew Wakefield is to blame for recent UK outbreaks of measles. But they do not know it yet...

Minister Howe stated in relation to recent cases in 2012 that the highest proportion occurred in those under five years of age and that [CHS emphasis added]:  a “minority of cases in 2012 can be attributed to the fall in coverage with MMR vaccine in the early part of this century …” and that “… MMR vaccination uptake is currently at historically high levels.“ (emphasis added)

...the Department of Health is presiding over the ultimate legacy of their MMR vaccination campaigns: “vaccination failure“.  Measles vaccine failure is not new and will be likely to increase over the years.  The MMR vaccine is failing but the Department of Health and especially Professor Salisbury want instead to deflect blame to Dr Andrew Wakefield and historical events of over 14 years ago which most people it seems have forgotten about.

Read the full post at:
Dr Andrew Wakefield Not Cause of Welsh Measles Outbreak – Confirms UK Government Minister In Parliament.

By John Stone

Truth is a hard game and when people start admitting it you scarcely know where it might end. Today, the BBC and the United Kingdom Department of Health tacitly admitted that a key finding of the GMC hearing against doctors Wakefield, Walker-Smith and Murch was false, to wit that the Wakefield Lancet paper of 1998 was identical to a study commissioned by the Legal Aid Board: with that finding out of the way – dismissed as it was Mr Justice Mitting in the High Court in the appeal of Prof John Walker-Smith – then many of the other accusations against all three doctors crumble to dust.

 

This is the wording of the BBC report:

 Dr Wakefield's study considered whether there was a link between the three-in-one MMR vaccine and autism and bowel disease.

It focused on tests carried out on 12 children who had been referred to hospital for gastrointestinal problems.

Dr Wakefield was also paid to carry out another study at the same time to find out if parents who claimed their children were damaged by the MMR vaccine had a case. Some children were involved in both studies.

However,  this  study was not the abandoned  one that the GMC panel insisted on in its findings:

The Panel has heard that ethical approval had been sought and granted for other trials and it has been specifically suggested that Project 172-96 was never undertaken and that in fact, the Lancet 12 children’s investigations were clinically indicated and the research parts of those clinically justified investigations were covered by Project 162- 95. In the light of all the available evidence, the Panel rejected this proposition.

Obscenely, the GMC panel deliberated for three years over this falsehood and yet such is justice that it has only been over-turned in the case of one of the doctors. However, it really is time that the manufacturers of these official deceits started answering questions. For instance, why - if MMR was safe - were such disgusting perversions necessary to protect its reputation?

 John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.

Following a measles outbreak in the UK, this post has been excerpted from Mail Online: Some Reflections on the Measles and MMR.    Peter Hitchens is an English author and foreign correspondent. You can also read a letter we ran from Dr. Wakefield earlier this week titled UK Government Culpable for Measles Outbreaks. From Mr. Hitchens:

I’m asked for my thoughts on the measles outbreak in Swansea. I’m not sure quite why, as most readers here will know my views on the MMR controversy.

Perhaps there’s some intended suggestion that I am in some way responsible for this outbreak, which is also being attributed by some to a long-ago local newspaper campaign against the MMR vaccination. The local newspaper, I should add, says that it covered the controversy fairly, which I have no reason to doubt. I was interested to hear its current editor rather aggressively and righteously questioned on the subject by a BBC presenter the other day.

Longstanding readers will know that I was myself mysteriously targeted, some years ago, by a skilful anonymous letter writer who faked a letter from a mother claiming that her child’s terrible illness was my fault. As it turned out, the woman whose identity the fraud had stolen (and whom I eventually traced) confirmed that no such thing had taken place. Nor, of course, had she written the letter sent to me with her signature faked upon it. The address from which the letter was sent was also a fake, though a very clever and carefully-planned fake which I only uncovered by going to visit it personally, a step the fraud did not think I would take.

The elaborate faking of the letter, the invention of a real-seeming address, the use of an actual name, have always seemed to me quite sinister and unpleasant. And it is things like this, rather than the science of the matter, which have continued to make me question the behaviour of those who petulantly insisted that the MMR injection was the only option for worried parents. I am still astonished that the supposedly beloved National Health Service, every inch of which is paid for by the public, treats the parents of children in this high-handed way. If it is the people’s service, a national benefit, surely its loyalty is above all to those who use it? Is the state our servant or our master?

UK Measles Outbreaks

Statement from Dr. Andrew Wakefield

 British Government is entirely culpable for measles outbreak

In the wake of further media distortion, misrepresentation, and ignorance in relation to the measles outbreak in Wales, it is important to clarify some key facts.

In 1998, following an analysis of all published pre-licensing studies of MMR vaccine safety I recommended the use of single measles vaccine in preference to MMR. This remains my position.

At that time, in contrast with the false assertions of many commentators, including Richard Horton, Editor of the Lancet, and vaccine millionaire Paul Offit, the single vaccines were licensed in the UK and freely available to the British public.

While MMR vaccination uptake fell from February 1998, there was a reciprocal increase in the uptake of the single vaccines – a fact that is never acknowledged in the press. Vaccination clinics administered many thousands of doses of measles vaccine and children were “protected.”

Six months later, in September 1998, the British Government withdrew the importation license for the single vaccines, effectively blocking this option for parents.  

Measles cases in the UK rose when the government withdrew the importation license for the single measles vaccine leaving concerned parents with no choice.

When I demanded to know why, if the government’s principal concern was to protect children from measles, it would prevent parents with genuine safety concerns over MMR from protecting their children, Elizabeth Miller of the Health Protection Agency responded, “…if we allowed parents the choice of single measles vaccines it would destroy our MMR program.” The government’s concern appeared to be to protect the MMR program over and above the protection of children.    

MMR Vaccine is Not Safe

Despite the claim of David Salisbury, head of the UK’s Immunization Division, that MMR has, “ an exemplary safety record,” two of the three brands introduced in 1988 had to be withdrawn for safety reasons – they caused meningitis.

 This afternoon journalist Brian Deer is a keynote speaker in the Evidence Live conference hosted jointly by the British Medical Journal and Oxford University’s Centre for Evidence Based Medicine. Yesterday, Age of Autism republished the unanswered open letter that many readers sent to CEBM. Today we link once again to Alan Golding’s documentary Selective Hearing as a reminder to the “great and good” of British and world science of exactly who and what they are hiding behind in maintaining the integrity of MMR vaccine. AoA suspects that the conference organizers have held Deer’s appearance over till the end so that as many delegates as want to can make their excuses and leave before the humiliating event. Read our post Shame of British Science I.

Today in Oxford starts the two day Evidence Live conference sponsored by the British Medical Journal and the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at which journalist Brian Deer is an undistinguished guest, winding up the event tomorrow afternoon with a “keynote” speech. To mark the occasion Age of Autism is republishing the open letter it published early last month to the centre’s director Dr Carl Heneghan and colleagues, to which there has never been any reply. What Deer’s muck raking techniques and proven deceits have to do with scientific evidence is the sick question which hangs over the entire event.

Dear  Dr. Heneghan,

I am writing to voice my objection to Brian Deer’s scheduled appearance  March 26 at Oxford University as a keynote speaker in the EvidenceLive  Conference, sponsored by the British Medical Journal which is currently  being sued for libel over allegations of fraud made by Deer in the BMJ, which have already been substantially proven false in the English High Court through the successful appeal of Prof. John  Walker-Smith, senior author and clinician in the controversial Wakefield Lancet paper. (This sponsorship also represents a conflict of interest  for the conference.)

Brian Deer is an agenda journalist. He was hired in 2003  by a Sunday Times editor, Paul Nuki, who told him “I need something big” on “MMR”   (Nuki’s father was on  the Committee on Safety in Medicines when MMR was introduced in the late 1980s, while Nuki junior now heads the National Health Service’s main “information” site, NHS Choices). Sanctioned by his newspaper, Deer then interviewed parents using a false identity  , disguising from his subjects his role in an earlier report on successful Irish DPT litigant Margaret Best, in which he claimed “vaccine and drug companies might be welcome scapegoats.” 

Contrary to his later conceit that he was somehow taking on “the establishment” Deer obtained unimpeded access to confidential medical and legal  documents which he was ill-equipped to interpret (and while the agencies stood by and did nothing). Moreover, the allegations were rapidly taken up by the BBC and an NHS website linked to his. However, any public  interest defense effectively collapsed with the exoneration of Prof  Walker-Smith, who is widely recognized as the world’s leading expert in  pediatric gastroenterology and who had to spend eight years of his  retirement fending off incompetent allegations, and undergoing a show  trial.

Equally outrageously it was Deer, subsequent to his initial newspaper articles, who covertly submitted three formal complaints to the General Medical Council requesting the prosecution of doctors Walker-Smith, Murch and Wakefield, while coming to a mutually beneficial arrangement with the GMC prosecutor that he not be named, allowing him to continue reporting on a case when he had a personal interest. Deer was the only complainant against the three doctors and his role as complainant was confirmed in a High Court Judgment of Mr Justice Eady.

In the High Court last year, Mr Justice Mitting rejected virtually all Deer’s claims about misconduct in the Wakefield Lancet paper which had been adopted by the GMC prosecutors: the data regarding autism, GI illness, onset of symptoms had not been misreported, the paper correctly described the referral of the children, the paper was not funded by the Legal Aid Board, and there had been no unauthorized or inappropriate investigation of children. All these claims, which had originated in Deer’s reporting were found to be without foundation. Furthermore, Deer’s re-interpretation of the Wakefield paper’s GI findings, and the claim that Wakefield had in some way tampered with them, were denied and disproven in letters to BMJ by both histopathologist co-authors of the paper, neither of whom was on trial at the GMC (here  and here.)

Following the exoneration of Dr. Walker-Smith, the University College London (the parent institution to the Royal Free where Dr. Wakefield was employed) stopped its own inquiry into “the Wakefield affair” on advice of the UK Research and Integrity Office. This was despite the BMJ’s plea for the inquiry to continue. UCL stated that such an inquiry would cost a substantial sum of money and would yield nothing conclusive.

Deer’s presentation at the University of Wisconsin in October of last year defamed several researchers including microbiologist Dr. David Lewis, board member of the National Whistleblowers Center, whose investigation turned up a 2004 document showing that the UK Freedom of Information Office provided Deer with copies of necessary ethics approvals to cover the research component of the Lancet study, which he apparently never passed on to the GMC. A letter from the attorney for the National Whistleblower’s Center informing U of W of the defamatory content of Deer’s lecture and other of Mr. Deer’s fabrications and falsehoods can be read here.

Deer’s breaches of ethics and journalistic standards know no bounds. When parents of children in the study became outspoken in their support of Dr. Wakefield, Deer retaliated by publishing children’s identities online after accessing their private medical records. Deer has frequently disparaged autism parents, blaming them for their children’s disorders in the crassest terms: 1) “And they wonder why their children have problems with their brains…The festering nastiness, the creepy repetitiveness, the weasly, deceitful, obsessiveness, all signal pathology to me.”   2) “…a living example of how autistic disorders, and allied conditions, such as pathological demand avoidance syndrome, psychopathy and whathaveyou, are genetic. Certainly, if you are aware of his behaviour, you can see how hard he would run from the idea that it was the expression of his own genetic makeup that lies behind his son’s disorder.”

Brian Deer has played a major role in the corruption of the scientific process. He appears to be no longer employed by any news organization and has not published an article in nearly a year.  He has no visible means of support aside from advertising revenues from his website. In 2011, he gave the keynote address at a pharmaceutical conference hosted by a foundation with financial ties to three MMR manufacturers.

An open letter which covers the major issues in the Wakefield controversy can be read here.
Please reconsider Brian Deer’s inclusion in the speaking schedule of the upcoming conference. If these are the means necessary to defend the vaccine program then there is something deeply wrong.

The recent article about the TV movie, Hear the Silence, on Age of Autism was stunning.

It is the story of a mother's search for answers when her son regresses into autism, all the while facing overwhelming opposition from those she's forced to deal with. The mom, Christine Shields, comes to Dr. Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist, for help for her son---a story familiar to us in the autism community.

I was captivated by the passion Shields displays. She is the autism warrior mom. She has to be. People I've talked with about the film have told me that her role brought them to tears. Her story is also their story. Internationally known British actor, Hugh Bonneville, (The Gathering Storm with Albert Finney and the current PBS series, Downton Abbey) is ideal in the role of Wakefield.

I discussed the film with Dr. Wakefield. Here's what he had to say.

Question: How did this incredible film come to be made? How involved were you in the production?

Wakefield: I was interviewed for it. I believe that it was inspired by the fact that the writer, Tim Prager, has a son with CP. One day he was called to his son's school because another student had been bullying his son. The boy in question had autism.  Tim met the mother weeping in a corridor, at a loss to understand why her son had started behaving badly. After talking with her, he was moved to write the story.

Following this, Prager interviewed Wakefield, talked to parents and put the story together.

In the film, it seems that Dr. Wakefield is the only one concerned about the lack of research on the MMR vaccine. In response to the claim that the science doesn't support single vaccines, he says, "The safety studies don't support the MMR."

Later, Wakefield says, "How is it that this triple vaccine gets licensed? Why didn't the trials spot the Urabe meningitis consequence? Why didn't their trials show any of the results we found?

“They didn't do it. They've got a single license for mumps, a single one for rubella, a single one for measles. So they go to the licensing agency and they say, each of these is licensed, we'll just put them together. Give us a license."

My question for Dr. Wakefield: Is this really what happened? Did they really license a vaccine that was never tested in combination? Are they really giving three lives viruses together, something that would never happen in nature?

By John Stone

On Monday the three main British political parties came to an agreement to create a Royal Charter  for press regulation based on the recommendations of Lord Leveson,  which also hints at draconian powers over the internet which may extend across national borders. Inevitably, at the table in the small an hours of Sunday night was the shadowy lobby organisation Hacked Off, which had pretended to act as public watchdog  at the Leveson Inquiry while representing powerful global interests , meanwhile including as an adviser  the pharmaceutically aligned former Member of Parliament Dr Evan Harris, who collaborated with Brian Deer on his "MMR investigation" .  The implication of the charter in its draft form is that it may even attempt to control what is said about British concerns by British citizens on foreign websites, with the threat of legal retribution. The key clause comes in Schedule 4 (1b) (Page 21) :

“relevant publisher” means a person (other than a broadcaster) who publishes in the United Kingdom:

1. i.    a newspaper or magazine containing news-related material, or
2. ii.   a website containing news-related material (whether or not related to a newspaper or magazine)”

If this happened powers could plausibly be used to limit informed comment on such things as the vaccine programme and the causes of the autism epidemic  according to bureaucratic consensus, as we have already seen effectively happens in the British media for the most part without statutory controls, and as is also now being threatened in Australia.

At the inquiry Lord Leveson refused to allow evidence about the conduct of the Sunday Times MMR investigation but took care to hear evidence from the pharma funded PR guru Fiona Fox of Science Media Centre, and he later denounced Andrew Wakefield in his report, none of which was apparently in his original remit. Fox had chaired a Department of Business committee to determine the future of British scientific journalism which included Paul Nuki, who had hired Brian Deer to find “something big” on “MMR”,  and Martin Moore the boss of Hacked Off. Leveson and lead counsel to the inquiry, Robert Jay, also failed to disclose that they themselves had had an historical role in denying British MMR litigants a hearing.

The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday:

“The Royal Charter also states that it will cover 'news-related material' including current affairs news and information, opinion and 'gossip about celebrities, other public figures and other persons in the news'.

“Kirsty Hughes, the chief executive of Index on Censorship said: 'This will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on everyday people's web use,' she said.

'Bloggers could find themselves subject to exemplary damages, due to the fact that they were not part of a regulator that was not intended for them in the first place.'

Thank you to Sheri Nakken for creating a site to house the insightful articles of Dr. Edward Yazbak.   

From Articles by Dr. F. Edward Yazbak: F. Edward Yazbak, MD, FAAP of Falmouth, Massachusetts, practiced pediatrics and was a school physician in Northern Rhode Island for 34 years. He was formerly the Assistant Clinical Director of the Charles V. Chapin Hospital, a specialized infectious disease hospital and the Director of Pediatrics at the Woonsocket Hospital in Rhode Island. He was also the Pediatric Director of the Child Development Study, the Brown University division of the NINDB Collaborative Study and an assistant member of the Institute of Health Sciences at the University.

Since 1998, Ed has devoted his time to researching vaccine injury and the increased incidence and autoimmune causes of regressive autism focusing on maternal re-vaccination with live viruses.

Ed has been recognized as an expert witness on autism, pediatric disabilities, vaccine injury and Shaken Baby Syndrome. He has also published extensively.

Ed and Maureen, a pediatric nurse practitioner, have four children and twelve grandchildren. Their family like many others has been severely affected by autism.

The Deer Crusade and Collateral Damage

By F. Edward Yazbak

Four years ago, on February 16, 2009 to be exact, Ms. Melanie Phillips wrote a long exposé in The Spectator titled “A deer in the headlights”[1] that started with the following paragraph:

“Eleven days ago, Brian Deer renewed his onslaught against Andrew Wakefield in the Sunday Times. I wrote about it here and made the point that, since Deer’s allegations sparked the General Medical Council case against Wakefield which would not have occurred without his involvement, he was effectively a principal player in the story he was reporting — a clear conflict of interest and breach of journalistic standards”

To which, Mr. Deer apparently reacted by stating: