How not to do science
This article appeared in the April 2004 edition of Australasian
Science (control.com.aucontrol.com.auOpen ↗).
See it on the web at
ratbags.comausscience5.htmOpen ↗ or
acahf.org.auausscience5.htmOpen ↗ or
control.com.au253Skeptic.pdfOpen ↗ (Note to
m.h.a residents - anyone objecting to the column being
called "The Naked Skeptic" can go take a hike.)
In 1998, the medical journal The Lancet published a paper
written by, among others, Dr Andrew Wakefield. This paper
suggested a connection between the MMR vaccine and bowel
disorders and between bowel disorders and autism. The same
issue of the journal contained a paper which used
epidemiological data to refute any causal link between the
vaccine and autism, but this did not stop Dr Wakefield
becoming an instant hero of the anti-vaccination movement.
The science in the paper was always suspect, simply because
it looked like Wakefield had cherry-picked the subjects of
his research. There were only 12 subjects in total, and nine
of them were autistic. It looked like Wakefield was working
backwards from autism to MMR in order to find what he wanted
to find, but nothing could be proved because the paper said
that the subjects were a sequential group of children who
had presented at a hospital. In English, the word
"sequential" suggests that they arrived in that order
without any intervening patients.
The Lancet is now saying that it wished it had not published
the paper, and is saying that it would never have published
if it had known the truth about funding for the research,
the subject selection and Dr Wakefield's conflict of
interest. In March 2004 ten of the paper’s original 13
authors issued a statement saying that the paper was not
evidence of a connection between MMR vaccine and autism. We
now know that some of the subjects were not randomly
selected but were supplied to Dr Wakefield by a firm of
lawyers acting for the parents. These parents were convinced
that their children had become autistic as a result of
vaccination and were getting ready to sue the pharmaceutical
companies who had made the vaccines. Dr Wakefield was paid
£55,000 for his work and was going to receive more payments
as an expert witness when the lawyers got into court against
the vaccine manufacturers. Put bluntly, Wakefield was paid
to find a certain result (which matched his beliefs anyway)
and was going to get a lot more money if he found it.
One immediate result of the publication of the paper was a
demand that parents be allowed to have their children
vaccinated for measles, mumps and rubella as separate
injections rather than in a single shot. While this may
sound reasonable, it was promoted by people who are
committed to the idea that all vaccinations are at best
useless and at worst extremely dangerous. The real agenda
was to increase the number of doctor’s visits necessary for
a full vaccination program, therefore reducing the
probability that children would receive the full schedule of
shots. Dr Wakefield has said the he is not opposed to
vaccination and only wants the procedure to be safe, but all
the anti-vaccination campaigners say that. He recently spoke
(to a standing ovation) at a conference run by America’s
leading anti-vaccination organisation, the National Vaccine
Information Center, about his ongoing research. I watched
his speech live on the Internet but I had to turn it off
when he said that one of the subjects in his current project
was not autistic - yet. He included the child in the
autistic group because the child had been vaccinated and was
therefore probably going to be autistic soon. This is
supposed to be science.
It may surprise rational people to find that there is an
organised opposition to vaccination. The campaigners all
claim that they are not opposed to vaccination per se but
just want it to be safe. Perfectly safe. With no possibility
of any adverse reaction at all to any vaccine, where
“adverse reaction” includes crying after the shot. You may
think that I am making this up, but I have spent some time
dealing with these people and about the most polite thing I
could say is that some of them seem to be insane. I have
been told that measles is “benign” and less harmful to a
child than a hangnail. (Measles kills 745,000 children each
year around the world and is the leading cause of infant
blindness in developing countries.) I have been told that
all cases of shaken baby syndrome are actually adverse
vaccine reactions and I have been challenged to produce
scientific evidence from trials and experiments to show that
children can be harmed in any way by shaking. I have been
told that the World Health Organisation and the Save The
Children Fund are maintaining a policy of genocide in Africa
where they are using vaccines to deliberately kill children.
An article of faith for the anti-vaccinators is that
vaccination causes autism. The reality is that autism is
usually detected at about the age when children are
receiving certain shots, and several epidemiological studies
involving millions of children (Finland, Denmark,
California) have demonstrated no link. It has been blamed on
the mercury in the preservative used in vaccines in the
past, but MMR has never contained this preservative
(although at least once a month I am told that it has). Dr
Wakefield’s “research” provided another chance for the anti-
vaccination campaigners to frighten parents away from
protecting their children against preventable diseases. It
was never science; it was always propaganda.
--
Peter Bowditch
The Millenium Project ratbags.comrsolesOpen ↗
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