According to an estimate by the CDC published last year, 1 in 45 (or 2.24 percent) of children age 3 to 17 may have autism — a steep rise over the past few decades. Researchers have theorized that part of the rise could be attributable to a greater awareness of the condition. The CDC said the most recent jump from 2011 to 2014 may have a very mundane reason behind it: a change in the questionnaire the agency uses to track cases.
A new movie is out called "Vaxxed" which purports to show a conspiracy among CDC researchers in the suppression of a connection between vaccination of children and autism.
The original study that raised the issue was published in 1998 in the journal the Lancet and involved 12 patients who, after receiving the MMR vaccine, suffered ill effects that appeared to be autism. While many researchers were skeptical of the finding, panicked parents in both Great Britain and the United States pushed vaccination rates down sharply. Outbreaks of the measles, mumps and rubella on both sides of the Atlantic soon followed.
In 2004, Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer reported serious ethical violations by the 1998 paper’s lead author, gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield. Deer accused Wakefield of having been paid by a law firm that had been planning to sue vaccine manufacturers and of subjecting some of the children to unnecessary, invasive procedures for the study. The good Dr. Wakefield was also developing his own, alternative vaccine. After the revelations, most of the researchers named as co-authors in the study disavowed the findings and withdrew their names from the paper. In 2010, the Lancet’s editors retracted the paper. Three months later, Britain’s General Medical Council revoked Wakefield’s medical license.
In 2011, the British Medical Journal published a detailed investigation into the research, calling it an “elaborate fraud” by Wakefield and lamenting the harm it had caused and would continue to cause to the public health.
Most scientists consider the connection between vaccines and autism to be mythical. Dozens of top journals — including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders — have published papers that looked into a possible link and found none.
A study in JAMA in April 2015 was one of the largest; it involved an analysis of 96,000 children. The authors wrote that their findings “indicate no harmful association between MMR vaccine receipt and [autism spectrum disorder] even among children already at higher risk.”
"Vaxxed" continues to show to large audiences, however.
The director of “Vaxxed” — and the main expert who appears on camera — is that same Andrew Wakefield from England.
Being good requires rising above the mundane world periodically but being evil takes constant vigilance and effort.
The original study that raised the issue was published in 1998 in the journal the Lancet and involved 12 patients who, after receiving the MMR vaccine, suffered ill effects that appeared to be autism. While many researchers were skeptical of the finding, panicked parents in both Great Britain and the United States pushed vaccination rates down sharply. Outbreaks of the measles, mumps and rubella on both sides of the Atlantic soon followed.
In 2004, Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer reported serious ethical violations by the 1998 paper’s lead author, gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield. Deer accused Wakefield of having been paid by a law firm that had been planning to sue vaccine manufacturers and of subjecting some of the children to unnecessary, invasive procedures for the study. The good Dr. Wakefield was also developing his own, alternative vaccine. After the revelations, most of the researchers named as co-authors in the study disavowed the findings and withdrew their names from the paper. In 2010, the Lancet’s editors retracted the paper. Three months later, Britain’s General Medical Council revoked Wakefield’s medical license.
In 2011, the British Medical Journal published a detailed investigation into the research, calling it an “elaborate fraud” by Wakefield and lamenting the harm it had caused and would continue to cause to the public health.
Most scientists consider the connection between vaccines and autism to be mythical. Dozens of top journals — including the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders — have published papers that looked into a possible link and found none.
A study in JAMA in April 2015 was one of the largest; it involved an analysis of 96,000 children. The authors wrote that their findings “indicate no harmful association between MMR vaccine receipt and [autism spectrum disorder] even among children already at higher risk.”
"Vaxxed" continues to show to large audiences, however.
The director of “Vaxxed” — and the main expert who appears on camera — is that same Andrew Wakefield from England.
Being good requires rising above the mundane world periodically but being evil takes constant vigilance and effort.
1 comment:
The settling and unsettling of science. Sound familiar?
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