5 powerful reasons why the autism-vaccine link is an elaborate fraud

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America is filled with crazy conspiracies.  They range from the moon landing conspiracy, the jet contrails are poisonous conspiracy, to Obama is the anti-Christ and was born in Kenya, and Kennedy was shot by Lyndon Johnson, at the behest of Fidel Castro.

conspiracy-poster

Literally millions of people believe this outrageous nonsense.  Fortunately for the sane among us these bizarre theories are just that: theories.  They can’t hurt anyone except for those who might break their ribs laughing out loud.

The latest nonsense to come from Bizarro World, however, is the ‘vaccines cause autism’ theory.  This one can hurt people and is hurting people as I write this.

From Vox.com:

In 1998, an esteemed medical journal published a paper with a starting conclusion: that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine — administered to millions of children across the globe each year — could cause autism.

This study, lead by the discredited physician-researcher Andrew Wakefield, is where the current vaccine-autism debate started. It has since been thoroughly eviscerated: the Lancetretracted the paper, investigators have described the research as an “elaborate fraud,” and Wakefield has lost his medical license.

But public-health experts say that that Wakefield’s false data and erroneous conclusions, while resoundingly rejected in the academic world, still drive some parents’ current worries about the MMR shot.

Here are five reasons — and many links to further reading — that should remind you just how terrible the vaccine-autism research was.

1) Forget the fraud and data manipulation: the MMR vaccine-autism study was bad science

To begin with, Wakefield’s association between the MMR vaccine and autism was based on a case report involving only 12 children. “Case reports” are detailed stories about particular patients’ medical histories. And — because they basically just stories — they are considered among weakest kinds of medical studies.

In this case, many children have autism and nearly all take the MMR vaccine. Finding, among a group of a dozen children, that most of them happen to have both is not at all surprising and in no way proves that the MMR vaccine causes autism. (Wakefield also proposed a link between the vaccine and a new inflammatory bowel syndrome, which has since been called “autistic enterocolitis” and also discredited.)

But don’t stop with the retracted Lancet study. The totality of the evidence is monolithically opposed to it. Large-scale studies involving thousands of participants in several countries have failed to establish a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. As one of the most thorough studies to date showed, nearly half a million kids who got the vaccine were compared to some 100,000 who didn’t, and there were no differences in the autism rates between the two groups. “This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism,” the authors wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Studies published in the Lancet, the Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, PLoS One, and — among others — the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders have also found no association between the vaccine and autism.

2) Study author Andrew Wakefield manipulated and misrepresented his data

retracted

(Lancet)

A British investigative journalist, Brian Deer, followed up with the families of each of the 12 kids in the study. He concluded: “No case was free of misreporting or alteration.” In other words, Andrew Wakefield, lead author on the Lancet report, manipulated his data. (See the popup chart in this report for details.)

In the British Medical Journal, Deer spells out exactly what he found, and it’s rather shocking that this study was ever published in the first place. You learn that the parents of many of the kids deny the conclusions in the study; some of the kids who Wakefield suggested were diagnosed with autism actually weren’t; others who Wakefield suggested were “previously normal”  had pre-existing developmental concerns before getting their shots.

3) The paper is based on blood samples Wakefield drew at his kid’s birthday party

Even more absurdly, when the General Medical Council (the UK’s medical regulator) began to investigate Wakefield, they found that he had paid children at his son’s 10th birthday party to donate their blood for his research. That isn’t exactly a controlled and ethical setting. In fact, in deciding to take his medical license away, the GMC said Wakefield acted with “callous disregard for the distress and pain the children might suffer.”

4) Wakefield filed a patent for an alternative vaccine to the MMR

Wakefield also had financial conflicts of interest. Among them: while he was discrediting the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, and suggesting parents should give their children single shots over a longer period of time, he was conveniently filing patents for single disease vaccines.

“For the vast majority of children the MMR vaccine is fine,” he said, “but I believe there are sufficient anxieties for a case to be made to administer the three vaccinations separately.” He also suggested the long-term safety studies of the MMR shouldn’t be trusted.

Brian Deer‘s investigation revealed that, in June 1997, he had filed a patent for a supposedly “safer” single measles vaccine. Deer writes, “Although Wakefield denied any such plans, his proposed shot, and a network of companies intended to raise venture capital for purported inventions — including ‘a replacement for attenuated viral vaccines’, commercial testing kits and what he claimed to be a possible ‘complete cure’ for autism — were set out in confidential documents.”

5) Wakefield has refused to replicate the paper’s findings

At the very bedrock of science is the concept of falsification: a scientist runs a test, gathers his findings, and tries to disprove himself by replicating his experiment in other contexts. When that’s done, only then can he know that his findings were true.

About Post Author

Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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9 years ago

My nephew has Aspergers which is a form of autism. I’ve no idea whether he was vaccinated or not but I doubt it would have mattered. Some’at was up when he was born – I just knew it.

Mind you, he’s damn clever with computers and a great lad!!!

Bill Formby
9 years ago

Mike, as your former academic mentor I must point out that none of these nonsensical claims come anywhere close to being theories. I am not even sure they get to the level of being hypotheses. I know that you know that theories are developed through the use of the scientific method of research so please do not give these idiots the credit for being in the same realm as theorists.

Bill Formby
Reply to  Bill Formby
9 years ago

One other thing. Be careful about that “just theories” stuff. When my criminology students say that I remind them that gravity is just a theory also so feel free to step off the top of a building if they would like. They may or may not fall to the ground. After all, it is just a theory.

jess
9 years ago

I take offense at Obama being the anti Christ because I am told often I am the anti Christ. We cannot have two of them and I am not giving up my special status for some guy. I can’t even with these anti vaxxers anymore. Just cannot even.

Marsha Woerner
9 years ago

The sad thing is, the link between MMR and autism has been disproved for years, yet people still fear vaccines and refuse to get them for their children! I am so sorry that so many need to suffer due to the fact that their parents haven’t actually SEEN these diseases or experienced their results! A lot of these parents purport to be EDUCATED and care only for the best in their kids. Me, I kind of go the other way. I’m not sure that we should continue to NOT vaccinate for smallpox (which theoretically has been eradicated); but then, we all have our own hangups 🙂

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