MMR in the media - Part 2 - Wakefield is a liar

The other big story this week was the Sunday Times piece about Andrew Wakefield, and his quite phenomenal talent for lying. Not just getting things wrong, but out and out lying.

For those of you who don't know (there must be someone who doesn't), Dr Andrew Wakefield is the man who took a load of money to prove an association between MMR and bowel problems and autism, unsurprisingly enough did so, with what turned out to be a very dodgy piece of work. This was then published in The Lancet, and kicked off the whole MMR-Autism hoax.

It turns out that the biopsies from the bowels of the children he was dealing with weren't actually diseased, and medical records show that nearly all of them (there were only 12) had shown signs of autism before their MMR vaccine, or were showing signs of Aspergers Syndrome, and not regressive autism as Wakefield claimed.

That, at least, was what the Sunday Times claimed this week.

It's worth noting that this article was written by a freelance journalist called Brian Deer - who was the first to dig into the murky world of Wakefield's finances and research, and was at least in part responsible for him being crucified by the General Medical Council.

The reason it's worth noting, is that the JABS crowd (in particular that cock John Stone) have picked up on this fact, and tried to use it as a reason why the information should be discarded. Here's Stone:

…yesterday's story, which is based on Deer's uncorroborated claims based on documents he shouldn't have, can't publish and doesn't it should be said have the competence to understand.

Now, another poster, NikkiC picked up on this refutation of the story, and pointed out that none of that guff means that any of the story is untrue.

Various other loons then chime in in support of Stone. Each time, NikkiC politely points out that they aren't actually denying the points made in the article. They plead that Deer has been using documents he shouldn't have (although it seems that the information has been revealed in the GMC hearing), they claim that he doesn't understand the information (how difficult is it to understand that medical records stated one thing, Wakefield claimed something else in his study, and hence was lying? Hardly fucking rocket science, is it?), they bleat "troll!" (as though that's any kind of defence - doesn't make the Sunday Times wrong, does it?), and they try and change the subject.

Each time, NikkiC, Sandford, and Occam come back and ask why the Sunday Times article is wrong.

John Stone even goes as far as to point everyone to the rather hasty rebuttal of all the points by Andrew Wakefield. Except, hang on… he doesn't actually say any of them are incorrect - he does the same as Stone; he argues… well - I'll leave it to Nikki to describe what he actually argues:

There's a lot of hand waving, and "oh, you don't understand" in that reply - and precious little in the way of "that is factually untrue". There's lots of "oh, it wasn't me", or "I did the best I could", but, as I say, little that says "you're lying" or "you're wrong".

Dr Wakefield appears to be trying to explain the accusations away, rather than outright denying them.

The allegation that several children had already been diagnosed with autistic "signposts" (for want of a better term) is a very serious one, but is surely one that can be simply refuted.

Dr Wakefield replies with a series of "it wasn't me", "it was the others" and "you don't understand". Not an outright "that is not true".

When it comes down to it, Wakefield's been shown to be lying, his staunchest supporters know it, and are shitting themselves.

That fucktard Melanie Phillips has taken this up by the way, publishing pretty well all of Wakefield's bleatings in The Spectator, and making herself look fucking silly. Still, at least she has a voice.

I got an email from NikkiC earlier today. She's been banned from JABS.