Staring at the framed picture of Jenny McCarthy on my desk, imagine how surprised and dismayed I was hearing that there was actually no link between autism and the MMR vaccine on the radio. What? It sounded suspect, as the published paper from Dr. Andrew Wakefield (Feb. 1998 ) established a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Why was the sponsoring medical journal The Lancet retracting the original paper? How could my Jenny be wrong?!? This is sort of like getting your college degree, only to later have it revoked. Any “retraction”, especially in a medical journal, is a very big deal…
I only had to wait a day to get my answer. According to news sources at Reuters and as reported by NPR the next day, “It later emerged that Wakefield had been taking money from a lawyer suing vaccine makers…” . Baffled, I did more digging. It turns out a British investigative reporter for the Sunday Times, Brian Deer, has been tracking and covering this topic for years.
Following the money, what Mr. Deer discovered was that Dr. Wakefield initially took payments (from Richard Barr, Esq.) of over ₤55,000 ($85,000) to undertake the autism/MMR vaccine study. Dr. Wakefield was then paid ₤150 ($234) per hour to conduct supporting research, resulting over the years in payments of over ₤430,000 ($670,000). Why? Barr is an attorney attempting to construct an international class-action lawsuit on behalf of clients whose children have autism. Barr could make a lot of money with this unfounded frivolous lawsuit, and he needed substantial evidence.
Mr. Deer’s site is an exhaustive link-citation to newspaper and journal articles from 2004-2010 on this issue. A fine resource.
(Oh Jenny, how could you lie to me…not only is there no autism link, but lots of dirty money was involved…I’m so crushed!)
9 responses so far ↓
1
killbarney
// Feb 14, 2010 at 9:54 pm
I want a picture of Jenny McCarthy on my desk!
PS: You can upload your Blog Avatar from your Dashboard -> Settings -> Blog Avatar tab if you want to get rid of that default trailer icon. This is different than your User Avatar.
2
Rene
// Feb 14, 2010 at 10:07 pm
You rocked my world with this one Shaun. Now my head hurts. Thank you.
3
jdheadcase
// Feb 15, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Guess what? I write 3 of these babies every week for a nursing class – this was the best one this week…
4
jdheadcase
// Feb 17, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Thanks for the help – I could not find that thing before BUT now I can!
5
jdheadcase
// Feb 17, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Thank you for such a nice comment, and thanks for reading this ground-breaking news story.
Millions of parents have NOT vaccinated their kids because of this issue. All for a big money lie.
My statements should have included the problem: the problem is in the BIAS of the sponsor. Studies like this are often funded by government grants, foundations, and individuals, but this is such a glaring case of misuse of power and money to use a study to change behavior of consumers worldwide…
6
lurker
// Feb 18, 2010 at 5:09 am
Nevermind, I thought your were talking about Jenna Jameson. For some reason, I keep getting the two confused.
7
jdheadcase
// Mar 6, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Thanks. Sadly, we can’t import drugs from Spain legally otherwise I could return the favor of a recommendation…in fact, just what does Levitra ’super active’ do? I am curious.
Which receptor(s) does Levitra agonize or antagonize? What are it’s expected Side Effects? Drug and food interactions? What is it’s MOA? FDA approved? (– nursing student Jd Headcase wants to know things…)
8
maicyRix
// Apr 12, 2010 at 4:05 pm
This is just another reason why I like your website. I like your style of writing you tell your stories without out sending us to 5 other sites to complete the story.
9
jdheadcase
// Apr 13, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Jeez, good point. yeaH, isn’t that annoying? We’re all still humans – we sat around campfires 10,200 years ago telling stories, and master storytellers never sent listeners off to forests and fields where they could hear the rest of the tale…
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