Questions over MMR and Autism Link - Dr Andrew Wakefield Report in ST

Quote :

THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

Source

Well, I think I can safely say that makes me quite angry if it's true.

Well I think most of us knew the supposed link was farsical anyway and that was the opinion of most serious authorities on the issue.

johnfás wrote:

Well I think most of us knew the supposed link was farsical anyway and that was the opinion of most serious authorities on the issue.

And yet... a lot of leading American doctors (among others) don't think the supposed link is farcical. I went into some detail about it on this P.ie thread.

The ST report is by Brian Deer who has staked his reputation on his long-running anti-Wakefield campaign. Deer's stated intention is to "rub out Wakefield" (see Private Eye report here). There's more about Deer's dodginess here. Today's report looks like an attempt to prejudice the GMC hearings on Wakefield.

All this propaganda about measles being "deadly" or a "killer disease" is ridiculous. When I was young, measles was not a big threat. Our parents were not worried about it. It was a normal part of growing up; you got a little bit sick, then you recovered, and were immune thereafter. It seems that measles may be more serious for older people who contract it -- a recent phenomenon. Why do teenagers and older people contract measles now? Because of MMR!

soubresauts wrote:

johnfás wrote:

Well I think most of us knew the supposed link was farsical anyway and that was the opinion of most serious authorities on the issue.

And yet... a lot of leading American doctors (among others) don't think the supposed link is farcical. I went into some detail about it on this P.ie thread.

The ST report is by Brian Deer who has staked his reputation on his long-running anti-Wakefield campaign. Deer's stated intention is to "rub out Wakefield" (see Private Eye report here). There's more about Deer's dodginess here. Today's report looks like an attempt to prejudice the GMC hearings on Wakefield.

All this propaganda about measles being "deadly" or a "killer disease" is ridiculous. When I was young, measles was not a big threat. Our parents were not worried about it. It was a normal part of growing up; you got a little bit sick, then you recovered, and were immune thereafter. It seems that measles may be more serious for older people who contract it -- a recent phenomenon. Why do teenagers and older people contract measles now? Because of MMR!

Ah, the old "they're all out to get him" gambit. Brian Deer may well be out to get Wakefield, but his allegations are factual. If he is correct, then "getting Wakefield" is a public service.

By the way, I think you're thinking of 'German measles' there.

ibis wrote:

Quote :

THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

Source

Well, I think I can safely say that makes me quite angry if it's true.

It's utter bollocks. Jesus, it's exhausting to see this crap about Wakefiled coming around again. And as for fixing data, the medical authorities in Britain have behaved scandalously about vaccine side effects - not just MMR but others too. There is now a growing weight of opinion forming within the medical community itself that vaccination is a far cry from the holy grail of disease prevention that it is supposed to be. IMO, vaccination is lobotomoy of the immune system. As with everything, the key to the truth here lies in following the money.

Do people realise that there has not been one major clinical study among children with autism exploring the causes and links. All of these hysterical, bullying and aggressive pro vaccine promoters are basing their claims on vast, hugely expensive studies which are deliberately restricted to nohting more than general population studies and statistical probablities of links between the MMR and autism. These are the 'sensible authorities' that are being relied on - researches that cannot be an authority at all because they make no study of the actual thing in question. The British and US governments flatly refuse to fund the sorts of clinical studies that could definitively prove a link or otherwise.

Meanwhile, samll scale clinical trials from all over the world are consistently showing a link but there need to be several major trials of this sort for medical certainty - which nobody can afford to do wihtout government or industry funding. So in point of fact, in terms of truly authoritativestudies the evidence so far is in favour of a link not the other way around.

As for Andrew Wakefield - amid all the screaming insults levelled at him by the likes of Deer, what get's totally lost is that the guy wasn't even saying that vaccination was a bad thing! He merely suggested that giving three together seemed to be problematical for some children and that there would be no way of knowing who in advance, so it might be safest to administer them singly. This is his great crime. Jesus. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the common sense in that observation. Which of us ever caught three diseases like that all at once? You'd expect something unusual if that were the case. It's not hard to see that some of us might not be quite so ready to cope with it for all sorts of reasons. Sadly, Wakefields colleagues, leaned on hard by the medical authorities subsequently withdrew their support for his tentative claim because of some distorted interpretation of an alleged conflict of interest - the limp little thread on which the whole of the GMC's case rests.

The bottom line here is that the medical profession is the bought harlot of the pharmaceutical companies. Sure, there are lots of good and dedicated people doing great work but it is all within a framework that is about the bottom line. If that aint threatened then people are left alone to do good things. Otherwise... Billions of dollars are at stake where vaccines are concerned. There is no way that anyone who makes any challenge to this lucrative gravy train is going to be welcomed. Meanwhile for those of us with direct experience of vaccine induced symptoms and reactions, we have to rely on doctors who are prepared to brave the icy blast of the industry led backlash. Wakefiled is a decent, brave man. The so-called 'fixing' and 'conflicts of interest' that he is allegd to have had when examined properly are laughable. And what is most outrageous is that when you compare them to thousands of studies conducted for the FDA in the US and elsewhere his alleged unprofessionalism pales into absurdity compared to the outrageous fixing of research and connected interests that routinely goes on. The hypocrisy is colossal.

Did you mention in the past, Aragon that you have close connections who suffer with autism? I think we were talking about it on an ABA thread one time...

ibis wrote:

Quote :

THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

Source

Well, I think I can safely say that makes me quite angry if it's true.

ibis, the story concerning Andrew Wakefield's behaviour isn't new. To the best of my knowledge, most of his peers believe there was no scientific basis for his claim of a link between MMR and Autism (Edit: And also, that Mr Wakefield knew there was no scientific basis for his claim).

The difference is I suppose between genuine difference of opinion, honest mistake and deliberate misrepresentation.

soubresauts wrote:

johnfás wrote:

Well I think most of us knew the supposed link was farsical anyway and that was the opinion of most serious authorities on the issue.

And yet... a lot of leading American doctors (among others) don't think the supposed link is farcical. I went into some detail about it on this P.ie thread.

The ST report is by Brian Deer who has staked his reputation on his long-running anti-Wakefield campaign. Deer's stated intention is to "rub out Wakefield" (see Private Eye report here). There's more about Deer's dodginess here. Today's report looks like an attempt to prejudice the GMC hearings on Wakefield.

All this propaganda about measles being "deadly" or a "killer disease" is ridiculous. When I was young, measles was not a big threat. Our parents were not worried about it. It was a normal part of growing up; you got a little bit sick, then you recovered, and were immune thereafter. It seems that measles may be more serious for older people who contract it -- a recent phenomenon. Why do teenagers and older people contract measles now? Because of MMR!

I don't believe that's true Soubresauts. Measles is a serious illness and can leave nasty after effects, including damage to eyesight.

cactus flower wrote:

soubresauts wrote:

johnfás wrote:

Well I think most of us knew the supposed link was farsical anyway and that was the opinion of most serious authorities on the issue.

And yet... a lot of leading American doctors (among others) don't think the supposed link is farcical. I went into some detail about it on this P.ie thread.

The ST report is by Brian Deer who has staked his reputation on his long-running anti-Wakefield campaign. Deer's stated intention is to "rub out Wakefield" (see Private Eye report here). There's more about Deer's dodginess here. Today's report looks like an attempt to prejudice the GMC hearings on Wakefield.

All this propaganda about measles being "deadly" or a "killer disease" is ridiculous. When I was young, measles was not a big threat. Our parents were not worried about it. It was a normal part of growing up; you got a little bit sick, then you recovered, and were immune thereafter. It seems that measles may be more serious for older people who contract it -- a recent phenomenon. Why do teenagers and older people contract measles now? Because of MMR!

I don't believe that's true Soubresauts. Measles is a serious illness and can leave nasty after effects, including damage to eyesight.

Have to disagree Cactus, measles is not a serious illness - it occasionally is a serious illness. The main reason for measles being dangerous is malnutrition - particularly a lack of vitam A. Measles devastates communities in some parts of Africa because people do not have an adequate diet. The solution is not to eff up their immune systems with vaccines which destroy the natural ability to develop immunity, but to feed people properly. In our society, measles may, in a tiny number of instances be unexpectedly severe for some people - because of their individual states of health. They may very well be the exact people who are susceptible to adverse vaccine reactions too. The medical science behind vaccination does not even attempt to addres those issues - to discriminate between who is vulnerable and who is not. The idea that a one size fits all vaccination, a crude instrument that takes no account of the state of health of each individual is without risk is clearly not a runner. Blanket medication of any sort is a ghastly idea. People dont seem to realise that once a vaccine is administered your natural immune system's response to that disease is distorted permanently. The effect wears off and you are left even more vulnerable which is why boosters are needed. There is now, eg. an increase in the number of people vaccinated during childhod developing mumps later in life - when it is much more serious. Without vaccination, we develop a life long immunity to a particular disease. A few days of being sick in bed was and is no big deal any more than a bad cold with headaches and shivers is. That's what we all did before these stupid vaccinations came along. It is tragic that some people did not survive, but destroying something so precious to our collective wellbeing does not make things better. Vaccines are creating other tragedies on a bigger scale. They have also caused an undocumented number of fatalities - undocumented because of doctor's terror of suggesting that they are responsible for many of things they do to people. 'Coincidence' is the worn out explanation that parents are offered. There are thousands of questions that have gone completely unexplored about vaccination. OUr knowledge of its effects is miniscule.

Paul R wrote:

ibis wrote:

Quote :

THE doctor who sparked the scare over the safety of the MMR vaccine for children changed and misreported results in his research, creating the appearance of a possible link with autism, a Sunday Times investigation has found.

Confidential medical documents and interviews with witnesses have established that Andrew Wakefield manipulated patients’ data, which triggered fears that the MMR triple vaccine to protect against measles, mumps and rubella was linked to the condition.

Source

Well, I think I can safely say that makes me quite angry if it's true.

ibis, the story concerning Andrew Wakefield's behaviour isn't new. To the best of my knowledge, most of his peers believe there was no scientific basis for his claim of a link between MMR and Autism (Edit: And also, that Mr Wakefield knew there was no scientific basis for his claim).

Oh, I know the data as actually cited by Wakefield never estabished what he claimed it did. This is slightly different - the ST is saying that their investigations show he actually falsified the data.

As to the claim that measles is not a serious illness - death as a possible result seems serious enough to me. It is a pity that there is probably no mechanism for establishing Wakefield as criminally liable if the ST claims are true.

Some apt commentary:

Quote :

If these allegations are true, then it means that Wakefield out-and-out lied in his original work. He has denied this, according to the Sunday Times, but won’t make further comments.

This may cause a firestorm in the antivax community, but there are two things I will guarantee: the first is that in the end antivaxxers will stick to their beliefs that vaccines cause health problems like autism, because this is not and never has been, for them, about the facts and evidence. It’s a belief system, and like most other belief systems, it is impenetrable to evidence. If you have any doubts, I suggest you read the comments to the post I made the other day about measles being on the rise in the UK. One commenter on that post is saying all manners of outrageous things, and ignores the evidence that I (and a pediatrician) have left in the comments to him.

Second, and somewhat related, this hardly matters. Many, many independent tests have shown that vaccines are unrelated to the onset of autism. There is vast evidence that vaccines are very safe, and what small risk they pose is massively outweighed by the good they do. Whether Wakefield faked his results or not, he’s still wrong.

The good news is that if this pans out, then perhaps there will be a net loss of people from the antivax side of the argument. The ones who are true believers won’t waver in their faith, of course, but anyone with doubts may finally see reality for the way it is.

MN MODS: the title of this thread is legally actionable.

I very much doubt that Aragon, but if I am wrong I suspect Wakefield will clean out The Sunday Times long ever before he comes after Machine Nation. If he doesn't get a clean bill of health from the English GMC however, then the title of this thread will be the least of his worries.

As a matter of interest Aragon, why are you so convinced that Wakefield is not a fraud? That incidentally is quite a different question from the vaccine or MMR controversies.

I've changed the title, Aragon. Mod.

COC - this is a classic ruse by powerful vested interests to whom money is no object. Publish defamatory claims to tie your victim up in legal knots for years, just to keep the accusations over his head. Im gong to get in touch with to let him know about this discussion here. Im a loyal contributor to MN and hate to see it used and abused like this. Here is the 'reveal-all passage' from that Times report which is bursting with mendacity and diseembling in just about ever word. The headline in the Times is outrageous - the same one that is replicated above.

Quote :

However, our investigation, confirmed by evidence presented to the General Medical Council (GMC), reveals that: In most of the 12 cases, the children’s ailments as described in The Lancet were different from their hospital and GP records. Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the jab, in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.

This is typical of the lying bullshit thrown at Wakefield. Wakefields records are based on what he was told by the childrens parents and children themselves as part of a dedicated trial investigating something very specific. Of course records were not going to be the same - the circumstances were different - the questions asked of the parents and children by medical staff will have been different. To base a claim of falsification on any differences between the two is outrageous.

Re 'medical concerns' having been raised previously, what medical concerns? The fact that a child may have had tonsilitis or a vomiting bug? A person with vaccine induced autism can also have had other illnesses prior to the vaccination. The article does not even begin to claim that the same concerns were raised. It's scurrilously dishonest.

With regard to the hospital's search for inflamatory bowel disease, it does not say that the same tests were conducted as were by Wakefield. But there again they are trying to make hay out of Wakefield's thoroughness. He investigated the spinal fluid and found traces of the vaccine there. This is the most damning aspect of Wakefields findings. So what does the medical establishment do with it? It accuses him of child abuse for having done the tests in the first place.

The thing that stands out from this stupid, vicious article is that it was written more by lawyers than by journalists - who have been incredibly careful to keep their claims as much the right side of the law as they can. But the overall effect takes them over the line, quite clearly, and now that it has resulted in further defamations of Wakefiled - of which this thread is concrete evidence - it is actionable. At any rate, I intend to make him aware of it.

When you stand back from this filthy smear game you begin to understand the sick motives of all who support it: there is not one word about the actual clinical issues involved because you know what, they don't dare to go there. It is all about Wakefield himself - the tried and trusted method of discrediting the messenger lives on. Always remember Wakefiled did NOT claim there positively was a link, he said that it looked very much like it and that people probably would be safer to have vaccines one at a time rather than in threes. He has repeatedly called for large scale clinical trials of children who seem to have been affected by vaccines.

Much though it galls me to have to quote her, Melanie Phillips has done a very good job of delineating the disgusting behaviour of Wakefields attackers - essential reading:

http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=201

Guess what? Phillips has ever since been targetted in exactly the same way Wakefield has. 'Stupid', 'uncientific', yada, yada, yada.

The other evil thing that is routine for the vaccine liars and their supporters is the villification of parents whose children have suffered appalling reactions - often in front of their own eyes after vaccinations. People from all walks of life are included - secretaries, lawyers, cleaning ladies, actors, doctors, construction workers - you name it, the vaccine does not discriminate. All of these people are protrayed as 'emotinal', 'gullible' 'blame seekers'. Since I have personal experience of it, I might as well start with my own history.

My mother contracted German measles during one of her earlier pregancies. She was admitted to hospital and administered a blood transfusion from a woman who had had german measles in the the hope that the antibodies in the blood would counteract the disease and protect the baby. The baby was born physically normal but has demonstrated many of the characteristic traits of high IQ Asperger Syndrome all his life.

Against all of known medical science - or at least all that is claimed for it - three pregnancies later my mother again contracted German measles. This is supposed to be impossible. The same doctor attended her and said at the time that if he hadn't seen both outbreaks with his own eyes he simply would not have believed her. (!) The baby was born apparently normal. However, he has subsequently grown up noticeably undersized in comparison to any of his relatives - well shorter than is usual for a man at just over 5' - and has had autistic type symptoms all his life.

When I was 12 years old, doctors came around to the school and administered the rubella vaccination. Along with four others of my class mates I collapsed in the school yard minutes later and became very ill - all the others affected were boys. I was taken home and put to bed for two days. I felt lousy for weeks afterwards and was conscious of not feeling the same in some way I could not explain and never went back to feeling the way I had done behforehand. It has been suggested to me several times as an adult that I have Asperger Syndrome too, though I have never investigated the possibility properly. This suggestion was however,offered to me in the context of investigations of my own children. Three of the four have confirmed autism. All three suffered from horrendous bowel problems as babies and young children. They were all vaccinated too, though the last two had fewer of the jabs, and the only girl does not have autism at all.

It is now becoming quite common to find multiple cases of autism within a single family. The vast majority of those affected are boys.

Epidemiological studies prove precisely nothing about the clinical issues here. There has been no major study because governments will not fund them - they are too costly to be done privately. The studies which have claimed to try and replicate Wakefield's own have all been debunked for the sham that they were. The outcome had to be that Wakefield was wrong and so things had to be skewed to ensure that it was. What is more, it is among those studies, for anyone who is interested, that the false claims and outrageous deceptions may be found. On the other hand, there have been several studies conducted outwith this controversial situation that have independently made similar findings to Wakefield's.

The irony of vaccination is that all of the diseases that they were supposed to address were already dramatically on the decline because of improved sanitation and diet. This graph from Australia is typical:

http://www.vaccinationdebate.com/web1.html

A former pillar of the General Medical Council in the UK, Hugh Pennington, once went out of his way in the pages of the London Review of Books, to establish the viciousness of measles and by extension the urgent need for vaccination. The problem with his thesis is evident in the first line of the article:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n13/penn01_.html

Quote :

There is a tradition of underestimating the nastiness of measles. It has never had the bad publicity it deserves, or been represented in the canon of ‘plague literature’: it has never featured in a Decameron or a Magic Mountain or a Death in Venice or attracted a Defoe or a Camus.

The reason is simple. Measles, for the vast majority of averagely healthy people is not a threat. Pennington goes on to mention all of the children who have gone to early graves, their fates unlamented, as he would have it. Again, the reason is that there simply have not been so very many of them since the real causes were addressed. I'm quoting Pennington here deliberately as one of the most avid and cross of Wakefield's detractors though less devious and dishonest than many. Some way into the article he admits the following:

Quote :

Ninety years later, its impact on malnourished children in sub-Saharan Africa was the same; it killed a million there every year. But there had been an enormous change in Britain. Halfway through the First World War the number of measles deaths started to fall. It went on dropping rapidly for the next half-century, until the mortality rate had declined more than a thousandfold. Measles had ceased to cause its previously common lethal complication, pneumonia. It had not been trivialised, however. The improvements in nutrition and housing responsible for drawing its teeth had not affected its ability to cause the other, rarer complications that historically had been masked by its lethality.

He goes on to quote statistics for incidences of the severe effects of measles. However when compared by those who study it, incidences of vaccination induced autism is much higher. The question is this: is it worth destroying an immunity of the enitre world's population which the vast majority of us will develop naturally - to protect the illness from striking the few who are susceptible and thereby risk inducing a lifelong and frequently seriously debilitating condition among far greater numbers of people? It's now conservatively estimated that a third of the young people in our prisons are on the autistic spectrum. I haven't even begun here with the horrific physiological symptoms and deaths which MMR and other vaccines have caused. Cherie Blair has refused to say whether her son Leo had his jabs separately. It's odd that she wouldn't confirm something so straightforward given she has been happy enough to share with us the means by which he came, accidentally, to be conceived at Balmoral (she forgot her kit or left it at home following earlier embarrassments there with it). People close to her say that she followed Wakefield's reccomendations.

Quote :

vaccine induced autism

How does this work? How is it different to 'other' forms of autism?

If Wakefield has done nothing wrong, he has nothing to fear from either investigation or discussion.

However, no other study has backed his claims, and several of his co-authors have withdrawn their support of the original conclusions. If you choose to see in that only the workings of powerful conspiracies, that is your responsibility. If, on the other hand, Wakefield has falsified data, that is his responsibility - and it is a large one.

Truth will out, as they say.

ibis wrote:

If Wakefield has done nothing wrong, he has nothing to fear from either investigation or discussion.

Just like what was said to the unfortunate women accused of witchcraft a couple of centuries ago...

Just like if there was anything wrong with fluoridation the Irish courts wouldn't have let it go ahead. (Cf this.) Yeah, sure.

This whole anti-Wakefield thing seems to have been driven by two journalists, Brian Deer and Ben Goldacre, with the Living Marxism people (Spiked Online, Sense About Science, etc.) always there in the background.

ibis wrote:

If Wakefield has done nothing wrong, he has nothing to fear from either investigation or discussion.

However, no other study has backed his claims, and several of his co-authors have withdrawn their support of the original conclusions. If you choose to see in that only the workings of powerful conspiracies, that is your responsibility. If, on the other hand, Wakefield has falsified data, that is his responsibility - and it is a large one.

Truth will out, as they say.

The circumstances in which his co-authors 'withdrew' their support has already been explained.

Truth will definitely not out while its determination is in the hands of the GMC and the pharamceutical companies. Andrew Wakefield is being throughly stitched up, his professionalism called into question and everything possible being done to strip him of his license to practice. That is the only way they can really stop him from investigating further and of carrying authority. Once that verdict is in, he will have been substantially destroyed and will either have to dedicate the rest of his professional life to defending himself or put up with a horrible injustice. Those of us who have been following his case closely know better though, and there are too many of us to shut up. We will not stop or ever give up. You are completely wrong in your assertion that no other trials have backed Wakefields claims: several have from different small scale trials around the world.

For an indication of how the medical establishment behaves about vaccines, here is one medical doctor's experience of what was done about the known risk of thimerosol in vaccines. It's from a Canadian website 'Vaccine Risk Awareness Network' and it makes for chilling reading. Though the evidence of the damage caused by thimerisol was known it was nevertheless decided to keep using existing stocks until a new one was developed:

http://www.vran.org/vaccines/doctors/blaylock-covup.htm

These are the sort of bastards we are dealing with, that Andrew Wakefield is up against.

Sure, yeah - it's all a conspiracy. After all, it's not like doctors are ordinary people who other people know, right? Same as the dentists collude to suppress the dreadful effects of flouridation, the scientists operate to suppress Creationism, climate change scepticism, perpetual motion machines and unicorns.

If there was such a great conspiracy, Wakefield's study would never have seen the light of day. It's like 9/11 truthers - the conspirators have to be so ubiquitous and so ruthless that none of the whistleblowers would have survived.

Sorry - you're fooling yourselves here. I don't know why you do it, and I don't care to investigate it. I only hope neither of you are in positions to influence such decisions for anyone but yourselves - and if you have dependents, I'm sorry for them too.

ibis wrote:

I only hope neither of you are in positions to influence such decisions for anyone but yourselves...

But you're the one who wants vaccination made compulsory, aren't you, ibis?

Look, drop the personal stuff and the unicorn stuff and try to deal with the facts and the evidence. Please don't try to deny that there are a lot of dirty shenanigans behind the vaccination business. For example...

soubresauts wrote:

ibis wrote:

I only hope neither of you are in positions to influence such decisions for anyone but yourselves...

But you're the one who wants vaccination made compulsory, aren't you, ibis?

Look, drop the personal stuff and the unicorn stuff and try to deal with the facts and the evidence. Please don't try to deny that there are a lot of dirty shenanigans behind the vaccination business. For example...

There's a lot of dirty stuff that happens in every field of human endeavour. Simply throwing up examples of pharmaceutical or medical skulduggery doesn't prove your case any more than the Donegal corruption scandal means that policing is a bad idea. Those cases are simply being used as a comfort blanket for irrationality.

And to remind you again, what I said is that I'd be happy to see people face criminal prosecution for refusing to participate in public health programs. Public health is a duty, and being an idiot doesn't exempt one from it.

Public health measures are by their very nature compulsory and should remain so. It is by measures of compulsory public health that vast improvements in the standard of all our living have been made. I would refer you to any book on medical history, such as, Roy Porter's Disease, Medicine and Society 1550-1860, as being useful.

Kate P wrote:

Quote :

vaccine induced autism

How does this work? How is it different to 'other' forms of autism?

Kate - vaccines are not thought to be the only cause, just one among many suspect triggers to do with an increasingly toxic environment. Some children are clearly born with it while in others something triggers it - my second son was developing normally until he had his second dose of vaccines - everything halted after that. This is a good summary of the thinking about causes - its a good website with links to lots of stuff both pro and con vaccination:

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/childrens-health/2008/12/11/a-government-call-for-vaccine-research.html

ibis wrote:

... Those cases are simply being used as a comfort blanket for irrationality.

That's an appalling insult.

Quote :

And to remind you again, what I said is that I'd be happy to see people face criminal prosecution for refusing to participate in public health programs.

That reminds me of none other than... Bertie! Bertie in 1993, when he said: "it would actually give me the greatest of pleasure watching non-compliant taxpayers going to jail, and that's the kind of person I am." See here.

Quote :

Public health is a duty, and being an idiot doesn't exempt one from it.

Let's consider public health medicine in Ireland. The two main programmes of public health medicine are vaccination and fluoridation. The latter is, demonstrably, a conspiracy, a massive scientific fraud, a vicious deception, and an appalling waste of the health, as well as the money, of the public. And the former? Well, the same people who are forcing fluoridation on us are pushing vaccination on us... (with impunity, lack of accountability, lack of transparency, and a vast amount of public money!)

Here is the big mystery: Why do intelligent people not question vaccination and fluoridation?

Johnfás, you ought to know that vaccination is not compulsory in Ireland.