Discussion Forum Unit 3
Wakefield and His 12 Dotard Disciples
Question 1: Tell your fellow classmates which of the studies you felt led to the most harm.
My fellow classmates, it was a difficult choice for me to ascertain which study between the Immunization and the Stanford Prison studies led to the most harm, both were brutal, nevertheless my anger fell on the Immunization study published by Andrew Wakefield and his 12-dotard disciples.
Personally, Andrew Wakefield and his 12 disciples are evil men. Consciously, knowingly, and deliberately publish a scientific lie, without a concern for the cost on human life, is the highest and most stinky scientific indecency ever known to man. Their publication that vaccine against deadly measles,
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Media Conference: Scientists could have called for Media conference and pour out the truth amass to the public through the media.
3. Lancet’s editors should not have publish such a controversial study without further academic experiments and investigations.
The Media
1. Media Push. Results of studies like this one should not be given any form of publicity. Wakefield’s report received media push, a great mistake.
2. Truth push out via media. It is an ethical responsibility of the media to pour out the truth amass to the public, attacking and denouncing wrong report, unfortunately these did not happened.
The Public
1. Leaders ought to speak out. The educated people in the public, community and religious leaders, musicians, school heads, market coordinators etc. Should have spoken out with a load voice, rejecting the report. “It is not the wickedness of evil men that destroys a nation, but the silence of the good men,” (King, n.d, p. 1).
Conclusion
My opinion is that Wakefield and His 12 Disciples are walkers of evil, and must be allowed to walk free in our society.
Reference
Expert Reviews Ltd. (2003). Doctor seeks to abate MMR vaccine fears. Expert Review of Vaccines. Vol 2, no.6, 2003, p729. Expanded Academic ASAP. http://www.expert-reviews.com/loi/erv (Sept. 23,
Andrew Wakefield’s research and the movie “Vaxxed” has provoked skepticism about vaccines’ safety and generated a lack of vaccinated children. Wakefield has tried to spread false
Andrew Wakefield was the lead researcher on a study that linked autism to certain vaccines given to children. The study was later retracted and Wakefield lost his medical license. From a strictly ethical standpoint, if Wakefield did the things he was accused of, there are several issues with how the research was reported. Scientific misconduct occurs when a researcher purposely fabricates data or alters a study in some way that is not reported (Schweigert, 2012). Wakefield is accused of falsifying medical histories of children in the study and framing the data to confirm the information he wanted to portray (Cohen & Falco, 2011). If Wakefield did change or alter medical histories used in the study, this would be scientific misconduct on his
He was also told that he would receive more compensation after the lawyer wins the lawsuit. However, he never disclosed this information to the journal publisher or the board. Falsifying data is an unprofessional and despicable research ethic. Research studies should use data that are actually collected during the experiments. No one should ever alter the data in favor of a certain side. Such action will show biased in a study, making it unreliable to use for future investigations. In Wakefield’s scenario, his inability to uphold his integrity as a researcher created more issues to the general public by providing misleading information to the society. Doing a research that has public interests should be treated more seriously. In his study, Wakefield only used 12 participants to draw his conclusion about the correlation between MMR vaccine and autism. Disregarding the biased part, this small amount of sample was not reflective to the whole population, locally and globally. As a researcher, he failed to disclose any conflicting interests that arose during the
Andrew Wakefield is a former gastroenterologist and medical researcher who was discharged from his medical register in the UK, because of his dishonest research paper he released back in 1998, that analysed a possible link between measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and the presence of autism and bowel disease (Godlee, F., et al, 2011). Wakefield's research generated a substantial scare for the MMR vaccine and MMR vaccination rates began to drop because parents were concerned about the risk of autism after vaccination (DeStefano, F., Chen, R.T., 1999). After the paper was published by the Lancet medical newspaper, other reviews were trying to repeat Wakefield's conclusions,
Wakefield had lied about the medical histories of the children and the duration between symptoms and vaccination (Deer, 2011). Child number two had shown symptoms six months after being vaccinated, but Wakefield’s paper claimed that child number two showed symptoms two weeks after being vaccinated. The child’s medical history stated that symptoms had been shown six months after vaccination. Actually, only child number two had “regressive autism.” Furthermore “regressive autism” is where the child seems to normally develop, but they start to lose skills like speech. The paper stated that all of the children had autism, but three out of the twelve did not have autism at all (Deer, 2011). To strengthen his claim, Wakefield lied about the amount of children with autism. Two of the three children, who did not have autism, were siblings (Deer, 2011). Both of these siblings had bowel problems before getting vaccinated. Wakefield stated that the bowel problems were linked to the autism. The siblings did not even have autism and their bowel problems started before even getting vaccinated. The effects of this are quite dangerous. In the UK, vaccination rates dropped below 85%, and in some areas below 75% (Kolodziejski, 2014, p.165). In Londen England, vaccination rates were as low as 58% (Burgess, Burgess, & Leask, 2006, p.3921). Parents felt that they would rather have their child get mumps, measles, or
In order to investigate more about Wakefield’s study, Brian Deer, a journalist of British Medical Journal, carefully talked to the parents of all children who were participated in the study. Interestingly enough, he revealed the fraud behind Wakefield’s research. The Lancet, the journal that reported Wakefield’s study, retracted the paper soon afterwards (Deer). However, the real trouble still exists. Though it has been proved by many researchers that the MRR doesn’t cause autism, many people perceive the vaccine as a threat. Dr.Nemeroff once said “it is quite difficult to get the cognitive sewage out of the water even after the real sewage is gone” (Greene).
What Dr Wakefield did is really disastrous and I can't blame you for calling him a monster. Furthermore, I do agree with you that his colleagues could have stand against it. I am still hoping for the best with regards to the implications that this unethical research caused.
In fact, The BMJ, or the British Medical Journal, chimed in on Wakefield’s paper. “By the time the paper was finally retracted 12 years later, after forensic dissection at the General Medical Council’s (GMC) longest ever fitness to practise hearing, few people could deny that it was fatally flawed both scientifically and ethically” (Godlee, “Wakefield’s”). Furthermore, Wakefield’s license to practice medicine was stripped away by Britain’s General Medical Council because of misconduct, including the time Wakefield paid his son’s friends £5 each to take blood samples during his son’s birthday party (Burns, “British”). More recent studies also prove that the vaccine-autism link is nonexistent. One study, performed by the Journal of Pediatrics, found that, “ … of MCO members, increasing exposure to antibody-stimulating proteins and polysaccharides in vaccines during the first 2 years of life was not related to the risk of developing an ASD” (Destefano, “Increasing”). In other words, having a young child exposed to the ingredients of vaccines does not result in the child developing autism (Destefano, “Increasing”).
Live Science Contributor, Stephanie Pappas tell us that, “Wakefield was getting money from lawyers planning on suing vaccine makers, and he owned a patent on an alternative to the MMR (measles) vaccines,” [2] this statement is clear evidence of fraudulent activity and proves that Wakefield had corrupt reasons for undergoing this study in the first place. The second flaw to Wakefield's paper was the questionable practises of his study, for starters he based his study on twelve children that he “cherry picked,” and “although the paper claimed that cognitive problems developed a few days after the MMR vaccine, a simple investigation of hospital records revealed that wasnt so; and in several cases parents reported problems before the vaccine,” [2]. In summary, the investigation was sloppy and provided no tangible evidence that links autism to the MMR vaccine. Furthermore, it should be noted that the the link between autism and vaccines is purely coincidental, the symptoms of autism typically appear at around the age that vaccines are administered, in fact director of the Vaccine Education Centre at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr Paul Offit confirms this says, “Children get their first dose of the MMR vaccine at 12 to 15 months, the age at which autism symptoms typically
Doctor Andrew Wakefield’s study, published the 28th of February, 1998 in the scientific magazine The Lancet, is constantly cited as being the catalyst for the ongoing debate on whether or not vaccinations have any connections to autism. In the case of Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s study on the connections between autism and the M.M.R. (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, proper scientific experimental procedures were not seen to, such as his not including a control group. That is to say, in an act transgressing scientific integrity, he documented the cases
This news terrified many parents and they stopped vaccinating their children. Now many people are arguing whether or not the government should be able to force parents to vaccinate their kids. Senator Rand Paul stated, "I'm not arguing vaccines are a bad idea. I think they're a good thing. But I think the parent should have some input. The state doesn't own your children; parents own their children and it is an issue of freedom." However, it is the governments job to protect the majority population from any threat, including disease. During the 2013 Flu season 105 minors died of the flu, and over 90% of them were unvaccinated. Many parents were still frightened by the study conducted by Andrew Wakefield. However the study was discredited in 2010 when Brian Deer, an investigative reporter, discovered that his research was being funded by lawyers trying to sue drug companies that produced the MMR vaccine in a $56 million lawsuit. Wakefield lied about the 12 patients used in his study; it was later revealed that 5 of the children studied already had preexisting mental development problems. Wakefield also claimed that 9 of the children showed symptoms of regressive autism, which affects later in childhood, but in fact only 1 child showed the signs. In May of 2010 the General Medical Council in the UK revoked Wakefield’s medical license stating that he had acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly”. Many other studies have been conducted testing this claim however none have been able to reproduce the same research as
In 2010, after a thorough investigation that revealed not only bad science but also financial conflicts of interest, the original Lancet paper was retracted by the journal. "Part of the costs of Dr. Wakefield’s research were paid by lawyers for parents seeking to sue vaccine makers for damages," Gardiner Harris wrote in the New York Times. "Dr. Wakefield was also found to have patented in 1997 a measles vaccine that would succeed if the combined vaccine were withdrawn or discredited."
According to NBC News, 1 in 4 parents believe that vaccines can cause autism in healthy children. The CDC has refuted this claim time and time again, but despite this, parents still believe that inoculation is the culprit for America’s increasing autism rate. While many blogs and books have been written regarding the correlation between the two, the hoax really took off in 1998, when former medical researcher Andrew Wakefield published a fraudulent article about the results from his unethical experiment, where he examined 12 children who had exhibited signs of autism and bowel issues after receiving MMR vaccines. The problem with his tests, however, was that he meddled with the numbers, in order to have them better fit his theory. In reality, only eight out of the twelve kids developed autistic symptoms, and even so, in seven of those cases, the medical records and general practitioner records proved that the autistic symptoms were never present, and that Wakefield had fabricated most of his Lancet reports. The repercussions of this faulty journalism have been destructive, to say the
One such factor helping to manifest these large-scale epidemics is a study from 1998 by Andrew Wakefield, which claimed that there was a direct link between autism and the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine (Smith 1). As a result, many parents refused to vaccinate their children out of fear, and vaccine-preventable diseases like measles began reappearing more in both America and Britain, the place where Wakefield conducted his study (Cohen 2). Although a later investigation by the British Medical Journal discovered that Wakefield had distorted or altered the medical records of all twelve of the study’s participants and that he had been paid $674,000 USD by lawyers attempting to sue vaccine manufacturers, the atmosphere of apprehension surrounding vaccines is still strong among many individuals, and especially parents (Cohen 1-2). But despite all the controversy and the scientifically unsupported arguments of anti-vaccine sympathizers,
published a controversial study in British journal Lancet where he linked MMR vaccination to autism. (Should I include what his study was based on and results?) Years later, many other studies proved it wrong but mistrust of science and mistrust of government is still there (2011). For example, Phea Paul study stated that there is no evidence that autism is cause by any vaccine and therefore no reason for parents to deny a child protection in today’s vaccines offered (2009). His study shows that if comparing risks mathematically of death or disability as a result of not vaccination a child which are small, to the risks of causing an autism spectrum disorder by immunizing it increases significantly.