Dr Wakefield Smear Campaign Backfires On Mainstream Media
May 27th, 2010 | By Keelan Balderson | Category: Breaking News, Health & Big PharmaA vicious smear campaign against a maverick doctor that conducted his own research in to Autism is backfiring on the mainstream media, as visible public support for the doctor far outweighs any state and corporate controlled detractors.
Dr Andrew Wakefield has recieved harsh and unjust criticism from the Big Pharmaceutical establishment since 1998, when he released preliminary studies in The Lancet (the world’s leading general medical journal), regarding 12 children with severe bowel disease and autism. Despite what the media will have you believe, he never rendered any judgment whatsoever on whether or not vaccines cause autism during this initial paper, although he has made it clear that in his professional opinion this IS the case.
The proof is in the pudding, when some children have violent reactions and develop autism the very next day after taking the measles mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination, there appears to be a problem worth researching.
One parent who commented on The Mirror website, challenges an “expert” who claims to discredit Wakefield:
Dear Miss Miriam Stoppard (Mirror Expert). Will you please go on record, by way of reply in this comments section, to state that my childs autism (which manifested itself the day after the MMR jab) was not caused by the MMR jab. To date no doctor has been prepared to make that statement, however you appear so certain of the MMRs safety maybe you would be prepared to be the first to state that autism has never occurred as a result of the MMR jab….Awaiting your comment.
The concerned parent has yet to be replied to.
The rest of the comments show how this trial by media is completely backfiring. Several pernient points have been made, that need to be addressed, before Wakefield’s research can be swept under the carpet.
As web user McBride wrote in regard to this Dr Stoppard:
She managed to report on Dr. Wakefield’s work without reporting that he never said it was the ultimate in research; indeed, he noted that it was observational and more substantive studies were needed. Moreover, she continues incomplete reportage; she may have “no doubt” the MMR jab is safe, but thousands of parents know otherwise. Nor did she report the fact that the incidence of all those diseases plummeted to near nothing before the vaccine was even created, meaning it is worth nothing in terms of public health, and may be creating a great deal of harm.
Indeed, the whole point of research is to…you know…research, without being slandered in the process. After all, children’s health is at risk here. Surely some well funded independent research needs to be undertaken so parents can truly feel safe about sticking a needle in to their child. And if the evidence suggests it isn’t safe, then it’s the medical industry’s job to make sure it’s pulled off the market.
Despite this obvious notion, the media has somehow portrayed the very act of conducting medical research as evil. As if Dr Wakefield is on par with Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.
All of Wakefield’s patients were fully consenting. CASE CLOSED.
As another commenter sarcasticly replied: “How dare a Doctor actually think for themselves for one minute, and question the infinite wisdom of ‘Big Pharma!’”
It’s not just a wealth of public support that’s in defiance of the mainstream media. Even celebrity media darlings themselves fully back Wakefield’s findings and further research.
Famous Hollywood couple Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy released the following statement earlier this year, at great risk to their professional careers. They reveal a very important study that has been suppressed, and give reasonings as to why the establishment are smearing Wakefield:
Dr. Andrew Wakefield is being discredited to prevent an historic study from being published that for the first time looks at vaccinated versus unvaccinated primates and compares health outcomes, with potentially devastating consequences for vaccine makers and public health officials.
It is our most sincere belief that Dr. Wakefield and parents of children with autism around the world are being subjected to a remarkable media campaign engineered by vaccine manufacturers reporting on the retraction of a paper published in The Lancet in 1998 by Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues.
The retraction from The Lancet was a response to a ruling from England’s General Medical Council, a kangaroo court where public health officials in the pocket of vaccine makers served as judge and jury. Dr. Wakefield strenuously denies all the findings of the GMC and plans a vigorous appeal.
Dr. Wakefield is one of the world’s most respected and well-published gastroenterologists. He has published dozens of papers (http://www.thoughtfulhouse.org/publ…) since 1998 in well-regarded peer-reviewed journals all over the world. His work documenting the bowel disease of children with autism and his exploration of novel ways to treat bowel disease has helped relieve the pain and suffering of thousands of children with autism.
For the past decade, parents in our community have been clamoring for a relatively simple scientific study that could settle the debate over the possible role of vaccines in the autism epidemic once and for all: compare children who have been vaccinated with children who have never received any vaccines and see if the rate of autism is different or the same.
Few people are aware that this extremely important work has not only begun, but that a study using an animal model has already been completed exploring this topic in great detail.
Dr. Wakefield is the co-author, along with eight other distinguished scientists from institutions like the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Washington, of a set of studies that explore the topic of vaccinated versus unvaccinated neurological outcomes using monkeys.
The first phase of this monkey study was published three months ago in the prestigious medical journal Neurotoxicology, and focused on the first two weeks of life when the vaccinated monkeys received a single vaccine for Hepatitis B, mimicking the U.S. vaccine schedule. The results, which you can read for yourself here (http://fourteenstudies.org/pdf/prim…), were disturbing. Vaccinated monkeys, unlike their unvaccinated peers, suffered the loss of many reflexes that are critical for survival.
Dr. Wakefield and his scientific colleagues are on the brink of publishing their entire study, which followed the monkeys through the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule over a multi-year period. It is our understanding that the difference in outcome for the vaccinated monkeys versus the unvaccinated controls is both stark and devastating.
There is no question that the publication of the monkey study will lend substantial credibility to the theory that over-vaccination of young children is leading to neurological damage, including autism. The fallout from the study for vaccine makers and public health officials could be severe. Having denied the possibility of the vaccine-autism connection for so long while profiting immensely from a recent boom in vaccine sales around the world, it’s no surprise that they would seek to repress this important work.
Behind the scenes, the pressure to keep the work of Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues from being published is immense, and growing every day. Medical journals take extreme risk of backlash in publishing any studies that question the safety of the vaccination program, no matter how well-designed and thorough the research might be. Neurotoxicology, a highly-respected medical journal, deserves great credit for courageously publishing the first phase of this vaccinated monkey study.
The press has been deeply misled in the way The Lancet retraction, and Dr. Wakefield’s mock trial, have been characterized. Led by the pharmaceutical companies and their well-compensated spokespeople, Dr. Wakefield is being vilified through a well-orchestrated smear campaign designed to prevent this important new work from seeing the light of day.
What medical journal would want to step in front of this freight train? Moreover, why now, after 12 years of inaction, did The Lancet and GMC suddenly act? Is it coincidence that the monkey study is currently being submitted to medical journals for review and publication?
We urge the media to take a close look at the first phase of the monkey study discussed above and to start asking a very simple question: What was the final outcome of the 14 primates that were vaccinated using the U.S. vaccine schedule and how did that compare to the unvaccinated controls?
The U.S. vaccine schedule has grown from 10 vaccines given to our children in the 1980s to 36 today, perfectly matching the dramatic rise in autism. The work of Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues deserves to be shared with the world to further, rather than censor, scientific progress.
Vaccines are big business for the companies that produce them. Imagine being able to consistently sell a product to a large portion of the population?
If research is allowed to come to light that discredits the product then by by billion dollar industry.
You only have to look at the massively overhyped Swine Flu scare to see that these companies are essentially using the media as their marketing tool. But again it backfired as medical workers themselves refused to take the shots.
There’s only so long that the mainstream media can keep up this charade, before the public simply shun their publications altogether.
Wakefield, who now lives in Austin, Texas, recently appeared on The Alex Jones Show to give his side of the story, one completely silenced here in the UK:
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Credible.
I have lost confidence in the British National Health Service because my daughter has autism, a condition that is not being recognised in my part of England. Doctors do not know what to do about it.
Sad that much of the research being done is looking mainly at the psychological aspects and igoring the fact that autism is a neurological condition. Definitely the gut is part of the human body and is linked to mental health so why is there not more interest in the effects of diet on autism? A damaged gut needs to heal and diet can help.
There is no doubt that vaccines can cause damage. Surely there needs to be treatment for those damaged?
Dr. Wakefield’s “research” and theories distorted science and harmed children. In my opinion, he is an evil man. While the comparisons to Mengele are sensational and not useful (this sort of hyperbole will only harden feelings and never convince anyone of anything), the facts about the harm that has resulted from the panic over the MMR vaccine are clear: Prior to the introduction of the mumps vaccine in 1964 about 50% of children in the US contracted mumps. A frightening percentage died or suffered life-altering injury (e.g., deafness). Fortunately, the MMR vaccine worked. From the early 70’s until 1998 (when Dr. Wakefield’s now discredited study was published), the US recorded only one death per year due to mumps. For the entire US in 1995, only 906 cases of mumps were reported. Then, thanks to Dr. Wakefield and the people who have spread misinformation about MMR, mumps vaccination dropped off. The result? In the first five months of this year, 405 cases of mumps have have been reported in NJ alone. Thanks in part to Dr. Wakefield, NJ is on pace to have more cases of mumps than the entire US used to have just 15 years ago. Those are preventable deaths and deafness of my neighbor’s children. And it isn’t just mumps that is roaring back. The irrational fear of all vaccines (as distinct from rational fear. like the evidence that certain combination vaccines can increase the risk of febrile seizures) has spread. Preventable diseases like whooping cough (with 5 dead in California in the past month alone, 2 of them infants) are reappearing. And a recent national poll conducted from the University of Michigan, found that parents were more concerned about the safety of H1N1 vaccines (66%) than were worried about their children getting infected with H1N1 (55%). Dr. Wakefiled has contributed to this public health dilemma. Millions of American are now going without routine and recommended vaccinations based on discredited research and articles like this one.