Dr. Tenpenny Get Rejected

Dr. Moulden is also rejected.  He turns out to be connected to Wakefield's ex-stomping ground, Thoughtful House.   Moulden turns out to be more bizarre than I thought possible.  But Tenpenny is taken more seriously.

They both wanted to have their expert testimony included in a case before the vaccine court. The court rejcted both of them. Once upon a time, people could go into American courts, have decent credentials that allowed them to be declared experts and then say whatever they wanted.

This explains the Bendictin nonsense and the bankrupting of Dow from silicone breast implants that turn out not to cause the problems they were supposed to.

So the US Supreme Court decided in Daubert to change the rules. Now, experts aren't allowed to testify to anything they want.

Through a series of complicated maneuvers, someone came to the vaccine court blaming their problems on the Hepatitis A vaccine.  Two of their experts were Dr. Moulden (not so well known) and Dr. Tenpenny.  The court rejected both of them.

This info came via the Pertinent Inquiry blog which has a great entry titled Andrew Moulden and his junk science in Vaccine Court - Veryzer v. HHS  In addition to the blog entry, I recommend reading the actual decision, which is also to linked to from the blog.  There are a lot of words used there (not medical) that I haven't seen before.   I especially loved these:

Petitioner also finds relevant Dr. Tenpenny’s many media appearances giving her opinion on vaccine injuries, although he does not explain why the Court should.  Id.  A few clicks of the remote hammers home the reality that qualified knowledge is not now, if it ever was, a precondition to getting on  television.

and 

To this, Petitioner argues that Dr. Tenpenny is something of an autodidactic polymath, and that her expertise is not limited to her areas of formal study, but extends to all manner of potential vaccine injury.  The basis for this claim is Dr. Tenpenny’s reading diet in the area of vaccine injury, and her loquacious discussion in print and electronic media concerning same.   Though  these may be useful in a variety of contexts, they do not equate with medical expertise.  Truly, by the standard Petitioner espouses,  the Undersigned would be accounted a medical expert, after 19 years of reading medical  literature,  reviewing  individual  cases,  and  hearing  scientific  and medical  testimony.  However, it is clear that this argument is not persuasive.  Expertise is not acquired through osmosis or accretion, just as television interviews do not an expert make.  Her ideas on vaccine injury have not been exposed  to any critical analysis of  those  in  the  relevant  field,  let alone peer-reviewed medical  journals.   There is no way to ascertain whether Dr. Tenpenny’s opinion is credibly accepted by  those who would know;  there  are only  the patent defects  in her  report  that militate  for  the opposite. 

I'm surprised that Dr. Tenpenny allowed herself to be put forward as an expert before the Vaccine Court, especially as she has zero formal credentials backing up what she says. Event the castration drug pushing Geiers have some credentials.

Pharma Has No Friends, Only Shills

Rarely is there ever such a short pithy explanation of the world view of those who comment at Age of Autism as this comment.

Cased Study in Flawed Thinking

Philosophically, I'm part of the Skeptic movement.  We're big on logical thinking, logical fallacies, methodology and education.  And we're not particularly gentle if people agree with us for the wrong reasons.

Dr. Harriet Hall has just done an amazing job of explaining the various ways that most of 176 comments on an article she wrote are wrong.  Included in his criticism are those who agreed with Dr. Hall, but for the wrong reasons.

I really, really recommend everyone take a look. Defending Isagenix: A Case Study in Flawed Thinking

No More Preservatives -- Beaten to the Punch Sort Of

Beaten to the punch, sort of, as I had a nice draft worked up  by the inestimable Kwombles.  But she didn't fully demonstrate how wacky and incompetent  vaccination opponent Ms. Fisher of NVIC really is.

After all, vaccination opponents keep claiming they are vaccination safety advocates.  But look what happens when they get the chance to be vaccination safety advocates?  They're still vaccination opponents.

Huh?  Go read Kwombles  The Rest of The Story: FDA and Proposed Changes in Vaccine Policy (and a whole bunch of crazy)  and then come back here.

Vaccination opponents should welcome this change to the regulations that govern vaccines. Yup welcome.

The only issue is whether, as Ms. Fisher seems to think, this would enable the bypassing of the normal process for approving the use of a squalene based adjuvant in vaccines.The answer is no. Substituting or adding a new adjuvant results in a new vaccine with new effectiveness and safety issues.

The purpose of the change is to allow for changes that don't have to do directly with the safety or effectiveness of the vaccine itself to made easier.  Here's one example used by the FDA.  To allow a specially designed multi-dose vial of vaccine to be distributed without a preservative.  You know, preservative free, ******THIMEROSAL FREE****

Current regulations require any multi-dose vaccine vial to have preservatives added. But technologies that allow a 10 dose vial to be safely used without a preservative should be encouraged, especially with vaccine guns that don't require needles. Or just to lessen the cost of buying vaccine without compromising safety.

Seems smart to me.  This should be the type of regulation that NVIC should be jeering and not jeering.   I don't know if Ms.Fisher doesn't understand this, has been too lazy to read the regulation or she just wants to keep her followers upset.

Here's a quotation from the proposed rule that explains one of the benefits of the change.

An Old Latin Joke

I can't see where anyone discussed the plural of magnum opus at Orac's website, Respectful Insolence.  But this response gives me an opportunity to repeat the only Latin joke I know.

Posted by Helena Constantine.| June 23, 2010 12:07 AM
I'm responding here since its still possible to do so without registering.

1. I am thoroughly convinced that you [Orac/Dr. David Gorski] are not a pahrma-shill.
2. I am equally convinced that you never took Latin. So let me tell you that the word opus, despite its deceptive -us ending, is not a second declension masculine noun. It is a rather rarer type of third declension neuter. Its plural is not in the second declension -i, but the counter-intuitive opera. Magnus is a first/second declension adjective, so its takes a neuter plural ending in -a. So the plural of magnum opus is not magnum opi, but rather manga opera.

To which I replied:
Posted by: sheldon101 | June 23, 2010 1:00 AM

re #35 and latin plurals. I don't know where the plural of magnum opus was raised. I took latin for one year in high school. I primarily remember semper ubi sub ubi --- advice that Lindsay Lohan might have been wise to follow. And then there's the joke from "Rinse the Blood Off My Toga" which fits perfectly. You can read the text here and click on the video where it is about half-way through. I believe my Mom went to school with these two.

Can’t We Get a Little Respect?

Kim Wombles is a smart lady. She writes well and understands and is familiar and fairly comfortable  with the scientific literature on autism. That's fairly unusual for someone who doesn't have a strong science background.
For the first time, I'm going to copy a posting from another blog. I realize that many, many blogs or websites usually just copy someone else's work.  That's not what I do. The nastiest word used there is dumbasses. If that bothers you, stop reading now. You can read it here or over at her blog.  The title is  Can't We Get a Little Respect?

Real Nastiness Over at Age of Autism

The people at Age of Autism not only write total nonsense and censor any comments that they don't like, now they're trying to get a respected doctor and university researcher into trouble because of a fantasy that he has a conflict of interest. One of the main players, Kim Stagliano, even put up a comment with the email addresses of the board of directors of the hospital where he works. The underlying theme is a supposed conflict of interest of Dr. Gorski.  See Gorski under attack for an example.

The attack on Dr. Gorski has brought me to a grave realization. I too have a conflict of interest which I haven't spelled out.  Now I will

I don't live that far from the Aventis Pasteur industrial campus at Steeles and Dufferin in Toronto. Aventis Pasteur is part of Aventis Sanofi.  The campus was originally the farm for Connaught Laboratories which has been making vaccines there for almost a hundred years. Now it does R and D and production of vaccines.

Anyhow,  I pay taxes to the City of Toronto. Yes, Avenis Pasteur has gotten a nice chunk of change recently from the Province of  Ontario --- but Aventis is paying taxes at a rate which typically subsidizes homeowners.

So following Crosby's logic, I've got an undeclared conflict of interest when I don't explain this at my blog or at Huff-Po where I hang out.

And don't say this is ridiculous.  That's an elitist value judgement and post-modernists like Jake Crosby have moved beyond such bourgeois limitations.

Primary versus Secondary Sources

Primary sources are reports of medical research or original documents. Secondary sources are reviews of primary sources, commentaries on primary sources, textbooks, blogs and reports by government agencies such as the CDC in the US and PHAC in Canada. Court decisions are often excellent secondary sources because a non-expert  (the judge) gives reasons for the decision in language meant for other non-subject experts, lawyers, including appeal court judges who may review the decision.

Vaccination opponents love primary sources because they can cherry pick the ones they like. They may pick ones that are many years old in a field where the science and medicine keep changing. Primary sources often are written with a specific audience in mind that is expected to have technical skills and background. So quotes from primary sources may have a very different meaning to the intended audience as compared to your run of the mill vaccination opponent let alone a reader who is unversed in the topic.

Secondary sources often put primary sources into context. They explain what the primary sources mean and what is right or wrong with primary sources. They tell you the science consensus as of a certain date.

Yes, there are good ways of using primary sources. Unfortunately, vaccination opponents tend not to use them properly.

On The Soapbox

Added information on June 21st, see end of this posting.
The lies and distortions surrounding Monsanto’s donation of seeds to Haiti continues.  The story is simple:  Monsanto, for whatever reasons, decided they would like to donate seeds to Haiti. They carefully planned the donation with the Haitian government and two aid agencies.  The seed being offered is regular (open pollination) and hybrid.   They never offered GMO (genetically modified) seed.  The seed has been treated with typical fungicides. They make it less likely the seed will rot. And they protect Haiti from the importation of fungus along with the seed.


With that background in mind, here’s a slightly modified comment that I posted to More on Hybrid Hate

I like what I’ve read here enough that I’ve signed up for the newsfeed at Biofortified.org.
Here is what is bizarre. There is at least one NGO in Haiti developing hybrid seeds. That includes ‘normal’ hybrids and hybrids that are better nutritionally.

How did I learn about them? By asking myself questions, such as, “Is anybody else working with hybrids in Haiti?” and then turning them into simple search queries.I’m not critical of experts, such as here, when they don’t think in this way, because that just isn’t the way experts tend to think. Nor am I particularly critical of others when they don’t think this way. I thought this way 15 years ago, with my first internet crusade. And it helps if you’ve had a long exposure to the Skeptic movement.

But I keep reading comment after comment and article after article where claims are made that should set off any rational person’s crap detector (plausibility detector). People don’t seem to want ask themselves if what they read makes. Sure, I understand that the originator often lies or distorts the facts. No surprise. But it is those large number of less ideologically driven people who merely parrot what they’ve read that bothers me. Perhaps they don’t exist, but I think they do.

They’re not willing to spend a couple of minutes thinking about a simple search query and scanning the results. Perhaps they don’t understand that for most controversial claims, someone, somewhere has written up a thoughtful response.

Yes, I’m on a soapbox and maybe this isn’t the right place. But I do get a blog posting out of this at least.

My blog entry is Monsanto and Haiti. It, like many others of my entries starts with examining claims made at Huffington-Post, commenting there and adapting them for my blog. Information on nutritional hybrids in Haiti can be found here. ORE also grows open pollination seed and ‘normal’ hybrid seed.

Sponsoring Robert Masters at Huff-Po

Perhaps you're visiting here because you read Firstconsul's comment, "So Robert, who is funding you presence on the Huffpost today?" and my response:  "I'm funding "Roberts Masters" presence on Huffpost TODAY arguing for the use of DDT in Africa. If you don't believe me, check out my blog, www.vaccineswork.blogspot.com."

If so, let me let you in on a secret. I don't know Robert Masters.  But I thought it would be interesting to have someone actually answer the most bizarre shill gambit I've ever read--- that those who argue that DDT should be used in campaigns against malaria are getting paid for it.

The patent for DDT "was recorded in Switzerland in 1940, the United States in 1943 and Australia in 1943."   So where is the money to pay for the shill?  There is none.  And even if there is money, deciding how to best prevent malaria isn't a major worldwide concern. And those opposed to the use of DDT as a residual insecticide  (not for agriculture) and with the power to make their wishes felt are hardly likely to be moved by a groundswell of opposition to it in developed countries where malaria isn't a problem but DDT is an ingrained bugaboo.

Yes, there have been cases of people hiding that they are being paid to post positive reviews on specific products and hide that fact.  But that's a whole  different world from posting on vaccines (which I do) or alternative medicine. 

If you suspect Robert Masters is a shill, why not look at the comments he's written at Huff-Post. Currently, there are  455 of them since 2008.   While it isn't conclusive,  his views seem to be less than optimal for someone getting paid to post on DDT and malaria, as he is going to piss off those wavering environmentalists who you would think it would be his job to convince. And he would probably piss me off. Perhaps this comment analysis is wrong.  But it sure seems to be a real person out there, just following where his core beliefs lead him.

Anyhow, take a look around.  You can learn more about the shill accusations against me by entering shill in  the search this blog box on the right.

Got My Letter Read on TWIV

Over at Huffington-Post, I've been recommending that everyone interested in vaccines listen to the This Week in Virology podcast.  I'm not going to pretend that I understand all of it, but over time, it begins to fit together.   You also get a sense of how science is done and how those involved think.  Really great.

I got my second letter to TWIV read out on TWIV #86.  Quite appropriately, as the scientist in whose lab the PCV virus was found in the rotavirus vaccines.  The point that's most important for safety purposes is that the PCV virus was found in the vaccine going back to the start of their development.  And that all the testing had been done with vaccine that had the PCV virus in it.

By the way, I got a bonus of free vaccines for life from GSK and Merck for getting the letter read on the air. I'd been hoping for a new toaster, but you get what you get. Maybe I'll do better next time.

Cedillo- Heard Oral Argument

Left Brain Right Brain provides the audio of the Cedillo hearing before the Court of Appeals. And there's even a nice comment and link to my earlier posting. Appeals Won’t Succeed – Olmsted Isn’t Honest.  To understand this posting, reading the earlier one would help.

Well Olmsted wasn't honest, but I wish I'd heard the oral argument or read the brief by the Cedillo attorney (which I didn't find) rather than the nonsense of  Ms. Holland's brief. The Cedillo lawyer ends up arguing one point only --- that Dr. Bustin's reports and testimony should not have been admitted.  Why?  Because the underlying data (including the lab notebooks created by the Urogenetics  lab itself) were not available to the petitioners and therefore Dr. Bustin could not have been adequately cross-examined.

Under the Federal Court rules of procedure, the government lawyer conceded that Dr. Bustin's testimony would not have been admitted, because the underlying data wasn't available. So doesn't admitting the evidence violate even the fundamental fairness standard of the vaccine court.  If the special master violated that standard, then the Court of Appeal could order the case back to the special master to reconsider.

The Court was upset that the government didn't apply to have all the documents released by the UK courts.  They only asked for some reports and those reports were made available. Their reason, that they didn't think a very wide application would succeed, wasn't one that the judges liked.  

But the judges didn't like the petitioners not taking advantage of the offer of the Special masters and the government to join in an application to the UK courts to have all the documents released.  The Special Masters left open the record for a year to give the petitioners a chance to make that application.  Why didn't they apply?  According to the petitioner, because they wouldn't have succeeded.

What's left out is the point that Left Brain makes:  That the petitioner's expert,  Dr. Kennedy, was relying on the Urogenetics lab to make the case.  So if you throw out Dr. Bustin's testimony, you have the bizarre result that the government doesn't have the ability to present evidence to show that the reports from Urogenetics shouldn't be trusted. This point is clearly made by the Court of Appeals in its decision in Hazlehurst. And that decision will have a major impact on the decision this panel of the Court of Appeals will make.

And then there is the issue of credibility, which the Court of Appeals can't discuss.  What's the likelihood that the underlying data, the lab notebooks in particular, aren't going to support what Dr. Bustin testified to?   That the work done at Urogenetics was crap.

Then there is the problem that the Special Master stated that the decision would have been the same without the disputed testimony.  So what is the value of sending the case back?  And if it is sent back, can't the government make an application to the UK Courts?   Or even if they don't make the application, or the application fails, what about the problem of the fairness of letting in Kennedy's testimony without giving the government a chance to prove that the lab results from Urogenetics aren't to be trusted.

My prediction? The Court of Appeals will not send the case back to the Special Master.

Milk Safety - Milk in Bags

Speaking of milk safety, for a very long time after everyone else in the neigbourhood, we didn't have a car. I remember riding my bike back from the supermarket with a 3 or 4 quart glass bottle of milk. There was a plastic handle fixed to the underside of the lip of the bottle. A few times,  I'd break the bottle on the way home. I'd go back to the store, give them the broken bottle and the receipt and they'd give me a new one.

That can't happen anymore because they no longer sell milk in very large glass bottles. Instead, the way to buy a lot of milk at one time, is of course, in plastic bags. You can find regular milk, chocolate milk, lactose free milk and even goat milk in plastic bags. What's really neat is that bags are very strong. Drop them on the floor (unopened) and they don't break.  Using milk in bags requires special tools and techniques which you can learn about here (scroll down for the video).

Lead and Chelation - Expect More from Doctors

Dr. Mark Hyman is another medical doctor supporting alternative medical claims.  His latest at Huffington-Post is Why Lead Poisoning May Be Causing Your Health Problems  Whether there is merit to his claims, there is a big problem with how he presents them.  Here's how I responded.

As a teacher, an educator and a doctor, Dr. Hyman should hold himself to higher standards than those of a mere peddler of alternative medicine claims. They must include telling readers that there are others who strongly disagree with taking chelating drugs and then a urine test to determine if someone has excesslead. But he doesn't. That's wrong.

So here's the position of medical toxicologists on taking chelating drugs and then taking urine samples to test for heavy metals.

It is, therefore, the position of the American College of Medical Toxicology that post-challenge urinary metal testing has not been scientifically validated, has no demonstrated benefit, and may be harmful when applied in the assessment and treatment of patients in whom there is concern for metal poisoning.

I concluded: "I trust this information will be included in the future."  

Appeals Won’t Succeed – Olmsted Isn’t Honest

There is close to zero chance of the Court of Appeals overturning the Special Masters decision in another of the vaccines cause autism cases, Cedillo.

It is important for those hoping that these appeals to succeed to know that it is very, very, unlikely to happen and that the process before the Special Masters is finished. Writers who know better, such as Dan Olmsted at Age of Autism, do a disservice to their readers when they don’t explain this.

To test Age of Autism’s censorship policy,  parts of this posting were submitted as a comment to the article by Dan Olmsted.


Age of Autism comment begins
All 6 of the autism test cases found against the plaintiffs.  All 6 were appealed to the District Court --- none succeeded.  The Court of Appeals in Hazlehurst did not overturn the decision.

In Olmsted on Autism: Day in Court at Age of Autism, Dan Olmsted reports on the June 10, 2010 oral argument before the Court of Appeals in Cedillo. 
His report does a disservice to the readers of Age of Autism, by giving them false hope that the decision in Cedillo might be reversed.  Yes, there is a chance that it might be reverse, but it is extremely unlikely. And Olmsted should have explained why. He didn’t.
Olmsted writes:

“I have a very positive feeling about the federal judges,” said Sylvia Chin-Caplan, who argued the appeal.

 I leave with the sense that the judges were very troubled that the government had not acted in good faith,” said Mary Holland [who appeared on behalf of organizations that blame vaccines for autism]. “Those judges were very troubled by what the government’s done – very troubled.”

He goes on to give examples from the oral hearing. If this were a normal newspaper report for a general audience, Olmsted’s reporting would be so-so. But from an expert on the topic and for a specialized audience it is wrong.

The only argument before the Court of Appeal that had merit is that the Special Masters allowed in testimony from a UK expert when they shouldn’t have as some of the information was based on reports that the British government had not released so they could be presented in these hearings.  The specials masters kept the record open for a year and told the plaintiffs that they would join with them in an application asking the British government to release the documents.  The plaintiffs never applied to have the documents released.

The Court of Appeal panel in Hazlehurst faced roughly the same arguments as the Cedillo panel. The Court of Appeal reviews the trial court decision 'de novo', or brand new. If they don't like the trial court decision, they replace it with theirs. However, the appeals court and the trial court can't merely replace their judgment for the Special Master.   All quotes below are from the Court of Appeals decision in Hazlehurst.

By statute, the Court of Federal Claims may set aside the special master's decision "only if the special master's fact findings are arbitrary and capricious, its legal conclusions are not in accordance with law, or its discretionary rulings are an abuse of discretion."

VAERS Weird Deaths

VAERS is the US system for recording reports by anyone on adverse events after vaccination. It is a passive system, because the reports have to come into the system. 

Vaccination opponents often argue that somehow a report to VAERS somehow proves that the vaccine caused the harm. That's not true.

There are 3,229 unique (VAERS ID) reports of death (when I searched in May 2010). Are all of these 3,229 reports to VAERS worthwhile? No. I added the VAERS description and quickly came up with 383175-1. Here is the description:

Information has been received from a consumer via an internet newspaper concerning a patient who on an unspecified date was vaccinated with a dose of GARDASIL. It was reported that a parent can be guilty because if he had known about the side effects, then he might not have allowed the pediatrician to vaccinate the child, which resulted in death (cause of death unspecified). It was unknown if the patient sought medical attention. It was also reported that polysorbato 80 or tween 80 that is a chemical that causes infertility in mice and aluminum which is neurological toxin are in GARDASIL. This is one of several reports from the same source. Additional information is not expected.

A few more:

025520-1 71 yr old male w/presenile dementia, diabetes mellitus, & renal failure received Hepatitis B vaccine, recombinant, 40 mcg, IM. Dialysis shunt became infected Dx w/sepsis therapy initiated w/flucloxacillin, however pt died that day.

You can select the onset intravel. How long after the vaccination did the event occur? I chose over 120 days.

063883-1 6-11 month old "Reporter claims pt died from pertussis vax; pt went through hell & never had a chance @ life

348907-1 Father vaccinated against anthrax in 2000. Reports death of son in 2009. Child died of pneumonia.

252078-1 Prevnar "..The subject expired due to asphyxiation 319 days post immunization...The coroners office determined that the cause of death was a bean in the subjects trachea."

206893-1 "This subject is a 9 month old female, who was enrolled in a Phase IV P3T08 (Daptacel) study. The subject received two doses of study vaccine; the last dose prior to the event was given on 12/27/02. The subject died of multiple system organ failure due to near-drowning, 163 days post-immunization."

If you want to run your own reports, it's pretty simple.  Read this page completely and after selecting I have read and understood the preceding statement select CDC-Wonder.Do

Rotavirus Vaccine - Status in Canada

If Rotavirus vaccine is so good, why don't other countries have it on their recommended vaccine schedule?

I google rotavirus canada recommendation and found 

Canadian epidemiology suggests that individual infants and their families are likely to benefit from immunization with RotaTeq™. The vaccine has been approved for use in infants 6 to 32 weeks of age and should be offered to infants whose parents/guardians wish to reduce the risk of rotavirus. The first dose must be given within 12 weeks of age. Adherence to recommendations regarding the timing of administration of RotaTeq™ should be ensured, as the safety of its administration outside of these age recommendations is not known (see earlier section, Dosage and Schedule). 

The decision to include RotaTeq™ in universal, publicly funded provincial and territorial programs will depend upon other factors, such as detailed cost-benefit evaluation and assessment of other elements of the Erikson and DeWals analytic framework for immunization programs in Canada(65)".

It is an economic issue. But parents who want to can certainly get the vaccine. I saw a (retail)  price of $77 for the vaccine.

Cleaning Up The Oil Spill

During the discussion of the safety of raw milk. I said that there was a simple, effective solution: irradiate the milk. I got the kind of responses that I hoped for. And responded that it would not happen, even if it makes great sense as an alternative to pasteurization for raw milk producers. 

The best reply I got was:  Sheldon - since you like the idea of "irradiating the milk", would you also support "nuking the oil spill"?"

Here’s the guts of my reply.

Sure. But first you have to build a cofferdam around the spill and drain away most of the water. It's hard to explain without a lot of expensive visuals, but I think if you go here select Play Now in the middle of the page and listen to all of it or start listening at around 2:10 you'll get the idea.

I’m a big fan of old timr radio and I’ve always got some on my mp3 player. If you’re interested, go to botar’s web site and follow the directions to subscribe with itunes or other podcaster receiving software.

 

Selection Process - If Wakefield Told the Truth

Pretend we live on a different planet earth, where Wakefield's behavior to the children used for the 1998 paper was acceptable.

That still leaves the dishonest way he described the selection process for children to be included in the 1998 paper.  He had to lie. Because if he had told the truth, that they were connected to a lawyer (Barr) who was going to sue MMR vaccine makers for causing autism, the paper never would have been published in The Lancet.

Imagine if Wakefield had told the truth in his paper in the methods section.  Something like this:

We handpicked the children who took part in the study from those connected with Barr, the lawyer seeking to sue MMR vaccine makers.  We chose the order in which they would come to the Royal Free Hospital for a week of tests and procedures.  We were only supposed to include children enrolled after December 18, 2010 but we included children seen months before.

We kept running children through a week of tests and procedures through 1997, but only thought fit to include the first twelve children in the Lancet paper. The results from including more children in the study may have been different.  

Here's how Brian Deer described the selection process.

So, in February and June 1996, Barr wrote to [possibly hundreds of] his clients and contacts - overwhelmingly people who'd got in touch following publicity - and advised them that those whose children had any of a list of possible symptoms of Crohn's disease [such as bouts of diaorrhea, gut pain or even mouth ulcers] should contact him for possible referral to Wakefield.

It was a means of finding subjects for Wakefield's research, but, by selection, created a false impression. Using recruitment methods never publicly disclosed before Brian Deer's investigation, the appearance of a potential link between [1] MMR vaccination, [2] bowel problems, and [3] autism, was artificially created by soliciting and sorting from a larger group of children, recruited from publicity, a small number in whom all three issues coincided.

Here's a scan of the 1996 newsletter sent out by Barr.

So you see, Wakefield had to lie about the selection of the children. If he told the truth, The Lancet would never have published his paper. This issue of selection was serious enough to Wakefield that he lied about in a response published in the Lancet and at a scientific meeting.  See the fact finding decision starting at page 45.

Using The Wakefield Loyalty Oath

ex-Doctor Andrew Wakefield singlehandedly damaged vaccination in the UK, causing several deaths, the United States and Canada.

Wakefield has wounded the vaccines cause autism groups very badly--- but it could have been largely prevented. In 2007, when the charges by the GMC were made public, it was obvious that Wakefield had taken kids in distress and ran through a series of tests and procedures that weren't clinically indicated and in violation of just about every ethical rule for research on human subjects. That's separate from what he did with what he learned.

Wakefield had a choice, because it was clear he was going to lose his license. He could deny everything and make up nonsense arguments. Or he could have played the scientist desperate to find a cause and a cure for autism held back by bureaucratic research rules. 

He chose door #1. The organizations that supported him, made the same choice and have stuck to through 2010. That's terrible for them, because the don't have any answer when anyone points to how unethical Wakefield was.

Even better 2900 of them have sold their soul to Wakefield. Just about everyone prominent in the vaccines are evil movement have their name on  We Support Andy Wakefield