Dr. Nancy Snyderman is an unabashed defender of vaccines and, as medical editor for NBC News, a highly visible advocate for evidence-based medicine. Her zealous, no-nonsense attacks on anti-vaccine activists stand out from the lackluster and clueless reporting of others in the news and entertainment media. She rightly pointed out, for instance, that among bona-fide medical experts there is no controversy regarding vaccines and autism. That confrontation with Matt Lauer, which you can watch here, alerted science writers across the country that they were being snookered by shady anti-vaccine spokespersons who insisted the jury was still out.
Snyderman was back to promoting vaccines on the Today Show this morning, as the topic turned to California’s pertussis outbreak. As usual she came out swinging, laying the blame for six infant deaths and hundreds of hospitalizations on parents who delay or withhold vaccines. Unfortunately, Snyderman did not get all of her facts straight when she said “last year we saw children die of measles”, and it was clear from the context she was referring to the US. There is no record of a measles-related death in the US in 2009.
This is not to say measles is a childhood right of passage, leading to nothing more serious than a week away from school and an ice cream headache, as any anti-vaccine activists will tell you. Measles can also cause permanent brain damage and blindness. Just because most cases resolve themselves with no sequelae doesn’t mean measles is harmless. A major outbreak 20 years ago in the northeast US killed 130. And children died in the US last year from Hib (haemophilus influenza type B), which is probably what Snyderman meant to say. At 3:25 mark she says “Last year in Minnesota and in Philadelphia children died of measles.”
Hib killed an infant in Minnesota in Jan., 2009. Two children died in Philadelphia that same year. Before a vaccine became available, about 600 children died of Hib each year in the US. In 2009, the death toll was five.
But by getting her facts wrong, Snyderman opens herself to more attacks by anti-vaccine activists who have been portraying her for years as an uniformed fear monger. Which she isn’t. A little flustered maybe, but definitely better informed than the people who think measles is harmless, or that six dead infants are just collateral damage in Jenny McCarthy’s shameless climb off the Hollywood D-list.
Reporters Trine Tsouderos, Patricia Callahan, and George Papajohn “courageously challenge doctors who peddle alternative autism remedies to parents desperate for help,” said Casey’s press release “Through inquisitive, fact-based reporting, the series exposes the flimsy science behind the anecdotal testimonials that underpin uncontrolled experimentation on children.”
The prestigious Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism have recognized exeptional coverage of disadvantaged children, youth and families since 1994. The Tribune previously won recognition from the Association of Health Care Journalism for the same series.
Congratulations to the Chicago Tribune for their unbiased and well-informed coverage.
Ashland, Oregon, according to its chamber of commerce website, “is a pretty, small town, surrounded by gorgeous mountains, lazy creeks, and roaring rivers.” According to the Ashland Daily Tidings, it’s also surrounded by an outbreak of whooping cough.
“So far this year 23 cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, have been confirmed in the county, more than twice the number usually seen in a whole year,” reports the Ashland Daily Tidings.
The pretty, little town featured prominently in “The Vaccine Wars’ , a Frontline episode about vaccine rejectionism broadcast in April. Ashland’s parents are more prone than those in most communities to withhold some or all vaccines from their children in the mistaken belief they cause autism or other developmental disorders. According to the city’s website, the autism rate in Ashland is higher than the national average.
A health official quoted in today’s article says the City of Ashland “hasn’t seen especially high numbers of infections so far.” The population of Jackson County is about 205,000, and only 10 percent of its residents live in Ashland.
The west coast is currently suffering an outbreak of pertussis not seen in years. Over 900 cases have been reported in Calfornia this year, triple the expected number. The disease has claimed five infants in the Golden State, all younger than three months old. The worst outbreaks have been reported in the Bay Area, Los Angeles County, Orange County and Fresno County.
The San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department has reportedly identified more than 100 cases of whooping cough this year. The county reported two cases of pertussis in 2009 and 17 in 2008.
Add “snake oil salesman” to Boyd Haley’s list of public descriptors. The chemistry professor and anti-vaccine activist has been warned by the FDA that his erstwhile diet supplement, OSR#1, is a toxic brew with potentially serious side effects.
The Chicago Tribune’s Trine Tsoudeos reports that a June 17 letter from the FDA “details five violations of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act related to his product, OSR#1,” and adds “Failing to correct such violations can result in fines, seizure of products and even criminal prosecution.”
Haley, who gave up his day job at the University of Kentucky long ago, started marketing OSR (Oxidative Stress Relief) for autistic children about two years ago. Haley originally conceived the drug as a chelating agent, but when the FDA demanded proof that it was safe and effective, he rebranded OSR as a diet supplement. The active ingredient in OSR, N,N’-bis (2-mercaptoethyl)isophthalamide, is commonly used to treat wastewater mine runoff and polluted soil, and has never been proven safe for human consumption.
Respected scientists quoted in the story expressed shock.
“It would be hard to imagine anything worse,” said Ellen Silbergeld, an expert in environmental health who is studying mercury and autism at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. “An industrial chemical known to be toxic — his own incomplete testing indicates it is toxic. It has no record of any therapeutic aspect of it, and it is being marketed for use in children.”
Haley is a fixture at anti-vaccine gatherings where he regularly tells parents that autism is caused by mercury poisoning. When Haley introduced OSR at an a national anti-vaccine conference in May, 2008, it was hailed by parents as a chelating agent. The drug was first marketed through Defeat Autism Now practitioners, who tested it for safety on disabled children. In a July, 2008 letter to an anti-vaccine listserve, Haley wrote:
“(We) cannot make enough OSR at this time to supply everyone that wants it. Therefore, we are only supplying OSR to MDs or ODs who are treating autistic children. This is also being done to make sure that nothing out of the ordinary happens with a minority that may be sensitive to any sulfur based antioxidant, including OSR. It is important to have a physician monitor these children as a precautionary principle. Also, I don’t want OSR to be another “pig-in-a-poke” for parents that does not work. Therefore, we are asking all initial users to agree to allow their physician to get before and after (two months later) testing for 3 items: 1. Plasma glutathione level, 2. Urinary prophyrin profile, 3. CRP levels.
According to the Tribune report, when Haley tested the drug on rats he found evidence it caused hair loss and abnormalities of the pancreas.
Anti-vaccine activists who support Haley are dismissing the FDA’s warning letter as no different than the thousands of other letters the agency sends out every year. But Sullivan at LBRB says not so fast: “Dr. Haley’s letter shows that his own safety data, data not previously made public from what I can see, indicates the drug he is selling has the potential to cause adverse reactions.”
Tsouderos first introduced readers to Haley last January. That story quoted an anti-vaccine activist and mother of three as saying “I sprinkle the powder into (my daughter’s) morning juice and onto (my other children’s) gluten free waffle breakfast sandwich. We’ve seen some nice ‘Wows!’ from OSR.”
Tsouderos’ latest investigation is her fifth story on autism quackery since May, 2009. She has previously written about a Maryland physician who chemically castrates autistic children, a Chicago doctor who wants to do the same, and the deliberate misrepresentation of scientific studies to promote unproven treatments. Last May Tsouderos and another Tribune reporter, Patricia Callahan, were recognized with a first place award by the Association of Health Care Journalists.
The disturbing case of Reginald Cornelius Latson, the autistic young man arrested in Virginia last month, has taken a more disturbing turn. His mother, Lisa Alexander, told an internet-based radio audience Sunday night that Stafford County deputies used racist slurs against her son when they stopped and arrested him May 24.
Reginald, whom his family calls Neli, is diagnosed with Asperger’s. He described the events of May 24 to his mother, who took notes, during her visit to the Western State Hospital in Staunton, VA. Neli was sent to the facility by a judge for a psychiatric evaluation and treatment, after 11 days in an isolated jail cell following his arrest.
Neli was the subject of a manhunt after a caller reportedly told police that a subject who “possibly has a gun” was sitting in front of a library. Police also responded by locking down eight area schools.
Neli said he was first approached by a Stafford County sheriff deputy behind a high school, and was searched without incident. After no weapon was found, Neli told his mother, this is what the deputy said:
“How is your mom? Did she find her baby daddy yet? Don’t worry champ, keep hope alive (pumps fist in air), bet your grandma still hasn’t found her baby daddy yet. What is she, 100 years old? Maybe she should call Tyrone and find out. Maybe you should go on Maurey and find out who your daddy is. Your dad is probably sitting on the corner at the liquor store drinking. I have a dream that one day all the little black boys and little black girls will know who their father is. I have a dream that one day all black fathers will stop running out on their whores to go rob a bank. I bet you all are glad that Barack Obama is President now. You get to get free fried chicken. You can rob a bank and get away with it. Maybe now dog fighting will not be illegal. He should have went to jail longer.
“Barack Obama is going to turn the White House into a strip club and call it the nigger house. He’s going to paint the White House black and put strippers on top of it. Don’t get me wrong, I love me a black bitch every now and then. But that’s not what the White House is about. Oh, I forget, it’s called the nigger house. How’s a baboon going to know how to run the White House? That’s why it’s called the White House, not the baboon house. Boy, I remember the good old days when we were cracking the whips on your backs.”
The deputy then asked the young man to identify himself. Neli responded “I don’t have to tell you my name. You’re a racist, I know my rights, and you’re harassing me.” Then he turned and walked away. The deputy, according to Neli, grabbed him from behind and choked him. A scuffle ensued during which Neli was tased and pepper sprayed. Police said Neli took the pepper spray from the deputy and sprayed him with it. The deputy reportedly broke his ankle during the altercation for which he required surgery.
According to the official Stafford County Sheriff Department version of the incident, Neli escaped and evaded capture for 45 minutes. He was spotted shortly before 10 am near the same high school. Neli said that when he was arrested, he was thrown to the ground and kicked. He said “I didn’t do anything wrong!” The officers responded “You don’t have to do anything wrong. Welcome to Stafford County.”
Neli told his mother that after he was handcuffed, the police spit in his face and called him a nigger. One said to him “I will blow your fucking head off, nigger.”
As Neli sat handcuffed in the squad car, the deputies allegedly taunted him further: “Nigger’s going to jail. Nigger’s going to jail. Oh yeah, you can make a Snoop Dog rap song about that.”
Neli said the deputies manhandled him as they were putting him in the squad car. They bent his neck, and tried to slam the car door on his ankle. More taunting occurred during the ride to the station house, where he was interrogated. During the questioning, investigators tried to coerce Neli into admitting he had a gun. Neli made no such admission, and no gun has been found.
In another strange twist, Neli’s mother says two deputies appeared at her door last last night who said they had an arrest warrant for her son. “I told them that Neli was already in custody. They just stood there, then asked to come in. I refused.” She said the deputies never produced a warrant, and left without incident.
Lisa Alexander says her son has an exceptional recall of events, and it is unlikely he could have fabricated his version of the arrest.
Neli faces one count of malicious wounding of a law enforcement officer, one count of assault and battery of a law enforcement officer, and one count of knowingly disarming a police officer in performance of his official duties. He is scheduled to be released from a state mental hospital in two weeks, and returned to police custody.
Porter Library, where Reginald Latson was reportedly sitting in the grass on the morning of May 24. A 911 caller allegedly told police the young man was “possibly in possession of a gun”. No gun has been found, and it is unclear whether the caller claimed to have seen one. The call triggered a lock down of eight area schools, and a manhunt. by sheriff deputies.
“He’ll walk five or ten miles, it’s nothing to him. Sometimes he walks five miles just to grab a bite to eat at Chili’s,” says his mother, Lisa, of Stafford, Virginia. “Walking is his release.”
Neli, as his family calls him, is 18 and has Asperger’s, a mild form of autism. Three Mondays ago, he rose early and left home without telling his mother. “When I entered his room at 6:30 am and didn’t see him, I assumed he had gone for another walk,” she says. It was a school day.
Four hours later Stafford authorities had ordered a lock down for eight schools, and Neli was in police custody, facing one count of malicious wounding of a law enforcement officer, one count of assault and battery of a law enforcement officer, and one count of knowingly disarming a police officer in performance of his official duties. The cascade of missteps that led to the arrest suggest a combination of public racial profiling and the over reaction of law enforcement officers who are unfamiliar with autistic behavior.
After Neli left home early that morning he walked two miles to Porter Library on Parkway Blvd. “He goes there frequently. There’s a teen room there, and he enjoys it,” says Lisa. The library was closed, so he sat under a tree, in the grass, at the front of the building. The parking lot at Park Ridge Elementary, about 400 feet to the west, was filling up.
According to officials reports, someone at the school called police at about 8:38 am to report a suspicious person sitting outside the library, “possibly in possession of a gun.” A bulletin went out with Neli’s description, and officials, concerned that a gunman was on the loose, ordered a school lockdown and set up a search perimeter.
When police arrived at the library, Neli was gone. Unaware of the report, and impatient for the library to open, he began walking in the direction of the high school. A forested green belt of trees some 500 feet-wide with a well-worn path separates the school from nearby homes. At about 9 am, a “school resources officer” who is also a Stafford County Sheriff deputy approached Neli. That’s when accounts begin to diverge.
Lisa said her son complied with a search, which failed to find a weapon. Police say Neli “attacked and assaulted the deputy for no apparent reason.”
Neli told his mother that the school officer threatened him, and that Neli said “You’re harassing me. You’re not allowed to do that. I know my rights,” then turned and walked away. According to Neli, the officer grabbed him from behind and choked him. Police reports say a scuffle ensued, during which the officer pepper sprayed Neli. The Sheriff Department version, which you can read here, says Neli then took the spray from the officer and turned it on him.
According to Lisa, Neli said he took the spray and ran into the woods. The deputy, Thomas Calverley, reportedly suffered a cut to the head and a broken ankle, and underwent surgery.
By this time sheriff deputies were combing the area with search dogs, and at least one TV news crew offered a breathless live report of the manhunt. Neli somehow eluded the dragnet for another 45 minutes before being spotted and arrested in the high school parking lot, shortly before 10 am.
No gun was found “and subsequent investigation has indicated that that a gun was not actually seen by the reporting parties,” according to the official report.
Lisa learned of the arrest at 10:30 am, when she called the police to report that her son was missing. “I was told that he was in custody and was currently being questioned but I was not told why,” she said. “They wouldn’t tell me anything, and wouldn’t allow me to visit him. I told the police that Neli has autism, but they didn’t seem to care.”
For the next 11 days, Neli was held without bail, and in isolation at the Rappahannock Regional Jail. Police allowed Neli’s school counselor to visit, and she relayed messages and information to Lisa, who was allowed only one visit. “He wasn’t able to speak or communicate with me. He appeared to be in a catatonic state”, Lisa says.
She is understandably frustrated and angry.
“The actions that were taken by the police that day were excessive in the least and grossly mishandled,” Lisa wrote on a website that she started to counter inaccurate local media reports. “Someone says ‘I see a suspicious black male’ and he ‘could’ have a gun, while all my son was doing was sitting in the grass at the library. And you shut down six schools and go out on a manhunt for this dangerous black man who was sitting in the grass. Anyone can read between the lines and see that this just doesn’t add up.”
Neli is from a military family, and during his 18 years has lived in Florida, Germany, Oklahoma and Georgia. Seven years ago his family moved to Stafford, a sprawling bedroom community about an hour south of Washington, DC. The family struggled to find appropriate school placement, finally settling on a private school. “The public high school was crowded, with about 30 kids to a class. Neli wasn’t getting the attention he needed, and his self esteem was slipping.” But he had never been in serious trouble. Never like this.”
Lisa heeded the warning signs. A month earlier, she asked Neli how he would feel about wearing a medical alert bracelet that identified him as a person with Asperger’s. “He said that he didn’t have a problem with that, but I didn’t follow up. I’m just kicking myself for that,” she said.
Lisa, who works as a defense contractor, had also asked for a two month leave of absence to spend more time with Neli. That Monday was her first day off work. Her husband, Neli’s stepfather, retired from the Army and is currently stationed in Iraq as a military contractor.
* * *
As Neli’s time in isolation dragged on, police interrogators found him non-responsive and disturbed, and a judge ordered the young man transferred to a state mental institution for 30-days of treatment and evaluation. If the case is not resolved by then, he will end up back in jail.
The hospital is a 2-1/2 trip from Stafford, which Lisa says she has made four times. Horrified, she watched her son’s mental state worsen with each visit. “He is locked away and doesn’t understand why,” says Lisa. “He’s been through an ordeal.”
That ordeal has also changed Lisa, and the way she thinks about race, the police, and her community. She suspects Neli’s arrest was in part racially motivated, but it is not a charge she makes lightly.
“I used to donate money to the police benevolent society. I never imagined something like this could happen,” she says.
“I don’t think in terms of ‘watch out for those kinds of people’ or ‘you need to be scared,’” she says. “I grew up in south Florida. That’s a melting pot of cultures. I know there are good people and bad of every race.” Her life in the military, she says, has brought her friends “of every racial background.”
Has the ordeal changed her views on race and racism?
“It has,” she said, her voice trailing off. “It most definitely has.”
There’s a telling moment at the end of Don Imus’ interview with Andrew Wakefield, the gastroenterologist who has been barred by the UK General Medical Council from practicing medicine. Wakefield had just spent seven minutes explaining that he is the victim of a huge witch hunt and conspiracy by vested interests who can’t handle the truth about vaccines. Imus, unencumbered by facts and research, played along, eager to put another fluff celebrity interview in the can. Then this exchange:
Imus: If everything you say is true, if these are the facts, it doesn’t make any sense what happened to you.
Wakefield: That’s just the way the system deals with dissent and (unintelligible).
Imus: If you were a complete total whack job making all these wild charges, I could understand.
I think Imus is onto something. If Wakefield was telling the truth, then the GMC’s verdict against him makes no sense. But Wakefield wasn’t telling the truth, ergo what happened to him does make sense, ergo Wakefield is a complete and total whack job.
Let’s go to the tape:
Wakefield’s fact-challenged defense, which he also made during an interview with Matt Lauer two weeks ago, stands on two very shaky legs. First, he claims that the results of the discredited 1998 “measles in the gut” study have been replicated in five studies. His second point is that the US government has been conceding cases of vaccine-induced autism since 1991. Both claims are demonstrably false.
Wakefield identified the five studies for Imus:
This has been a common contention that nobody else has been able to replicate our findings, the key finding in The Lancet, which is bowel disease, has been replicated in five different countries. In Italy by Dr. Balzola, in Venezuela by Dr. Gonzales, in the US by Dr. Krigsman, and by Dr. Chen and Dr. Galiotsatos in Canada. It has been replicated around the world. The notion that it has not is false and a deception on the American public.
Sullivan at LBRB takes us through the five “studies”. Wakefield’s Balzola citation could refer either to a case study of a single adult autistic with an inflamed bowel, or an unpublished report of a meeting that took place five years ago. Neither constitutes independent, peer-reviewed replication of Wakefield’s finding of “autistic enterocolitis.”
The Gonzales study did not replicate Wakefield’s 1998 findings, although it did report a higher incidence of gastrointestinal problems in the autistic group.
The research for the Krigsman paper was performed at Thoughtful House, the alternative health clinic that Wakefield started in Austin, Texas, and was published in Autism Insights, an online journal that has been publishing for less than one year. If Imus had spent 15 minutes researching the story, he could have asked Wakefield how an article published in a journal he edits qualifies as independent confirmation. In fact the editorial board is packed with Wakefield cronies. Mike Stanton at Action for Autism rightly suspects the purpose of Autism Insights is to “publish paper papers by biomed supporters that cannot find a reputable journal that will publish them. This would make it no better than the bogus journals that Elsevier set up to publish infomercials for drug companies posing as bona fide research.”
The Chen study, published last winter, is a case study of two autistic children and a “rare association between autism and colitis”. The authors conclude:
This report suggests the possibility of either impaired intestinal barrier function or an aberrant immune system that predisposes autistic children to sensitization to environmental antigens. Large controlled studies are needed to examine this hypothesis.
To call this paper a replication of anything is more than a stretch. It’s desperate.
The Galiatsatos paper is a case report of two autistic adults with gastrointestinal problems, where the authors’ conclusion calls for “more investigations”. This is hardly the same as a replication of Wakefield’s original finding. Autism does not prevent GI problems, so it is not surprising that some adult autistics have GI problems.
Wakefield’s studies are weak tea compared to the studies that failed to replicate his findings. They include the 2008 Hornig study which faithfully reproduced Wakefield’s famous Lancet study, going as far as to use his original lab, and concluded his results most likely resulted from shoddy lab work. Also, to Chen et. al., (2004) who found no link between autism, MMR and the measles virus.
Wakefield’s second line of defense, that the US government has secretly been admitting a link between vaccines and autism is so ludicrous that only a doddering buffoon, i.e. Don Imus, would fail to catch on. It would be remarkable if none of the 2,100 cases awarded in vaccine court involved a child with autism. Given a known prevalence of 1:100, we can expect 21 cases where the plaintiff had an autism diagnosis. According to research by Kathleen Seidel at Neurodiversity, there are nine.
Wakefield’s accusation is so specious that even David Kirby won’t pursue it. Last year, the Generation Rescue pitchman wrote on the famously credulous Huffington Post:
And, more than 1,300 vaccine court cases were already paid out for encephalopathy and seizure disorders. We will soon learn how many of those children also have an ASD, though I can confirm now that it appears to be far, far higher than the 1-in-150 rate reported by CDC.
We’re still waiting for that follow up.
Wakefield’s deviations from the truth were not limited to junk science and historical revisionism. He also told Imus, with a straight face, that it is not unethical to act without ethical approval, where such approval is clearly required:
The essence of medical practice, Don, is fully informed consent. (Drawing blood from children at a birthday party) did not have ethical approval, and that was naive on my part. That does not make it unethical.
If there is a lesson in l’affaire Wakefield, it’s that matters of science are best discussed in scientific forums, where critical thinking matters more than glib replies. When a brave maverick doctor chooses the klieg lights of easy fame over the harsher light of free inquiry, he loses not only the respect of his peers, but any legitimate claim to be taken seriously. Wakefield’s long fall from London’s Royal Free Hospital has many stops along the way, and they reflect, in descending order, how far the mighty can fall. Imus in the Morning is just one more station before Mr. Wakefield’s final transformation into a complete and total whack job.
The anti-vaccine movement frequently complains that the medical establishment doesn’t spend enough time listening to parents. Sometimes the news and entertainment media take the bait.
“It is impossible to overlook the larger and direct dangers inherent in (Jenny McCarthy’s) position on vaccines,” wrote Karl Taro Greenfeld in Time Magazine last winter. “Yet it is equally difficult to ignore the emotional core of what she is saying: Listen to parents. If doctors won’t, then McCarthy will.”
The “parent as victim” meme is the donkey that pulls the anti-vaccine cart. McCarthy speaks lovingly of her “angry mob”. Generation Rescue founder J.B. Handley boasts of harnessing that anger to “bring the U.S. vaccine program to its knees.”
But last week, a member of the “medical establishment” was listening to parents at the annual AutismOne confab at Chicago’s Westin O’Hare. What happened next shows us that the “emotional core” of Jenny McCarthy’s angry mob is as hollow as its science.
A staff member of a western state department of public health was reportedly attending a session on vaccines and parental rights. According to one source, the speaker was advising parents how to apply for and receive vaccine exemptions. The session was interrupted by an AutismOne organizer who commandeered a microphone to announce that a state health department staff member was present, so parents should be careful about what was discussed.
A short time later four Westin O’Hare security guards entered the room, identified the staffer, and directed her to leave the conference facility.
On the way out, the ejected staffer asked to use the restroom. She was told that was OK, as long as an AutismOne volunteer accompanied her to the ladies room.
An email to an AutismOne conference organizer sent Thursday afternoon, asking for comment, has not been answered.
It gets worse.
Saturday morning, Chicago filmmaker and independent journalist Lars Ullberg was tossed out of the Westin O’Hare, a mere ten minutes after planting himself on a seat in a lecture hall.
“They wouldn’t even talk to me,” says Ullberg, who had paid to attend after being refused a press pass. “She (conference organizer Teri Arranga) just kept reading their ‘right to eject language.’”
The AutismOne website states “We reserve the right not to register any individual based on our own judgment. We further reserve the right to ask any participant to leave the conference if that person’s conduct substantially interferes with the participation of others.” Ullberg said no explanation was given for how his conduct (i.e., sitting in a chair) was interfering with others.
Prior to attending, Ullberg had received an email from Arranga, spelling out the conditions of his attendance that would make Dear Leader proud:
Autism One is not prepared to offer press passes to you or your crew. Although you and each of your crew members may pay the registration fee as regular attendees, subject to the usual terms of attendance, neither you nor your crew members are permitted to conduct any videography, photography, audio recording, or press interviews; furthermore neither you nor your crew members are permitted to quote attendees, presenters, exhibitors, volunteers, or staff in any manner that will be quoted, “on the record,” or used for public or private media or instructional purposes. Additionally, you and your crew members must identify yourselves accurately with your affiliations to those to whom you speak and also not mislead them to think that you are simply seeking information with which to help your child. Finally, you may not eavesdrop on private conversations between attendees. In summary, Autism One grants no permission to you or your crew to report on this conference or its attendees. Should we become aware that you are not following these guidelines, we will not hesitate to ask you to leave the conference.
“My hope was they would actually have a conversation with me,” says Ullberg, who says many of the presenters at AutismOne are making legitimate points. Apart from quack medical claims, some speakers addressed behavioral therapy, respite care, educational strategies, and other mainstream parent concerns.
Andrew Wakefield is not going away, but if yesterday’s anti-vaccine rally in Chicago is any indication, his audience is growing smaller and smaller.
About 100 anti-vaccine activists turned out to hear Wakers and nine other speakers on a sunny day in Grant Park. If you add event volunteers, vendors, press, speakers, skeptics, and curious bystanders, the crowd numbered less than 200. As Kevin at LBRB says, it was a bit of a damp squib.
About 15 years ago a mother from London approached him and said “Do not judge me too harshly Dr. Wakefield, but when I die I am taking my son with me. You see, I’m all he has. I’m the only one who loves him.”
“I didn’t judge,” said Wakefield. “I was moved by the love that a mother must have for her child that she would take his life rather than have him fall upon a society that really didn’t give a damn.”
Having established street cred, Wakefield went on to assure his fans that vaccines are way more dangerous that the diseases they protect us against, and they are not being adequately studied for safety. So Wakefield, disgraced and defrocked medical doctor and spiritual guru to American’s floundering anti-vaccine movement, will soldier on, and continue to do the studies that the medical establishment is afraid of. Or something like that.
The crowd also heard from financial analyst and amateur immunologist Michael Belkin, who played electric guitar and sang Vaccine Gestapo. He was introduced by a speaker who claimed “vaccine safety” is the defining issue of our day – forget global warming, social inequality, radical Islam, and the season finale of Lost. The real tragedy is that too many children are protected against too many diseases. Fortunately we have a talented songwriter to whip the masses into a frenzy. Lucky audience members snagged free copies of Belkin’s CD, which featured two other ditties: We Don’t Want Their Flu Vaccine, and Keep Your Mandates Out of My Body. Here’s the cover art:
Vaccine trial lawyers hit some low notes of their own. Attorney Robert Krakow, who draws his sustenance from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, pretended to lead anti-vaccine activists in The Fish Cheer. He stopped at F, and quipped “That’s what the government can do with its vaccine program.” Referring to his salad days of prosecuting drug crimes in Manhattan, Krakow confessed “I should have been going after the real drug pushers” – meaning the CDC, AAP, FDA, etc.
Note to Attorney Krakow: Technically speaking, vaccines are not drugs, they’re “biologics”. But we get it – you’re mad.
For a time, Wakefield stuck close by Attorney Jim Moody, another vaccine-court regular, not surprising given that so many of the ethical charges against Wakefield stemmed from his cozy relationships with trial lawyers. Here’s Wakefield and Moody catching some rays.
Rally organizers clearly expected much larger crowds, as evidenced by dozens of anti-vaccine signs still unused by 5 pm, when the park started to clear out. A sign-in sheet listed about 35 names and email addresses. Hundreds of free bananas remained unclaimed, and most of the vendors’ tables that lined one side of the quad remained empty.
Meanwhile, the rest of city carried on as normal. In this case, that was a good thing.
It’s been a very bad day for Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced UK gastroenterologist famous for birthing the latest wave of vaccine rejectionism. First, the General Medical Council stripped Wakefield of his license to practice medicine. Then, in an ill-advised effort to salvage his public image, Wakefield sat down for an interview with an irritable Matt Lauer on The Today Show.
“Is this the final blow to your credibility?” asked Lauer, checking off a partial list of blows: the multiple studies that disprove Wakefield’s fraudulent 1998 study, The Lancet retraction, and the twin losses of job and medical license.
“Is that it?” asked Lauer again, like he needed permission to stop booking this guy.
Wakefield was ready with two old, discredited talking points.
“The findings that we made originally have been replicated in five different countries of the world, so the bowel disease in these children exists,” said Wakefield. He’s talking about an unpublished abstract of a five-year-old meeting; two case studies of GI disease in one and two autistic adults, respectively; a Venezuelan study that specifically failed to support Wakefield’s hypothesis; and a “study” in a journal that Wakefield himself edits. Lauer, still unclear whether it’s OK to ignore Wakefield, tried to move one.
Wakefield, speaking over Lauer as he tried to ask another question, said that the US government has been “secretly” conceding a link between vaccines and autism since 1991. As Sullivan at LBRB points out today, this “bombshell” was first dropped by anti-vaccine publicist David Kirby last summer:
And, more than 1,300 vaccine court cases were already paid out for encephalopathy and seizure disorders. We will soon learn how many of those children also have an ASD, though I can confirm now that it appears to be far, far higher than the1-in-150 rate reported by CDC.
Kirby never followed up, and for good reason. In March, 2008, Kathleen Seidel performed a simple search of Vaccine Injury Compensation Program court records and found nine such cases:
Published VICP decisions include at least nine instances in which compensation was awarded for the lifelong care of children and young adults who were diagnosed with autism or related conditions after they sustained documented, verifiable vaccine injuries.
That’s nine cases out of 2,100 where compensation was awarded, for a rate of 1:233. Even if we double the number of cases of autism, the overall rate is still less than the latest CDC prevalence of 1:100. In other words, the rate of autism among compensable VICP cases is no higher than what is expected in the population at large.
So to recap:
Is it OK for the news and entertainment media to ignore Wakefield? No, according to Wakefield. Lauer is still on the fence.
Why is Wakefield still credible? Because five studies that aren’t really studies, including one that disagrees with Wakefield, and one unpublished meeting abstract, support what Wakefield says, even though every bona fide researcher in the world disagrees.
Anything else? An anti-vaccine publicist wrote one year ago that the US government has been conceding a causal relationship between vaccines and autism, but there is no evidence for such a claim, and the vaccine court’s own website says that no instance of vaccine-induced autism has ever been compensated.
Is that it? Not if you ignore the internationally-publicized decision by US vaccine court where three judges found no association between vaccines and autism.
Wakefield was right on one important point: we haven’t heard the last of him. As long as news outlets book first and ask questions later, the public will be exposed to all manner of pseudoscience and medical quackery.
