Contained in ths editorial is demonstration of the fact that the anti-vac
liars will stil lbelieve lies even after being shown that they are lies.
http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/archived/2004/0109/news/asp/p4news2.asp
DATE: 13/01/2004 TIME: 14:21:45 GMT
Fury as doctor denies
MMR autism link
Editorial
[email hidden]
A ROYAL Free doctor has provoked a storm of protest after defending the
controversial MMR vaccine in the Ham&High.
A flood of letters in response to last week's article - including several
from the USA - accused Professor Brent Taylor of bias in casting doubt on a
link between an increase in autism and bowel disease with the Measles Mumps
and Rubella vaccine.
In an emotional letter one mother said her children had suffered "mood
swings, food allergies and diarrhoea" following the jab: "What proof do you
have? I have two children, both of whom had their GI tracts affected right
after receiving the MMR vaccine."
But Prof Taylor, head of paediatrics at the hospital in Pond Street, denied
one major accusation that his own research disputing the link had been
funded by MMR pharmaceuticals giant Merck.
He said funding for his two epidemiological studies had come from first the
Medicines Control Agency and then from the Department of Health.
"These criticisms are not new and it is surprising to see them still
appearing. They have been answered on many occasions," he said.
Last week, Prof Taylor attacked a Channel Five drama about MMR and said
deaths could result from the exceptionally low uptake of the vaccine
following the 1998 report by his Royal Free colleague, Andrew Wakefield,
which suggested a link between MMR and autism.
Campaigners who contacted the Ham&High claimed that the professor's studies,
which suggested that the increase in autism cases were the result of greater
reporting and better awareness of the condition, were flawed.
One letter writer said: "This doesn't fit the facts. The evidence of a
massive rise in autism is all around us. Two decades ago, rates of autism
were one in several thousand.
"And yet I have personally come across a rate of 1 in 69 among
three-year-old boys, and the Scottish press has just reported a rate of 1 in
49 amongst school children in and around Inverness."
Another writer said: "Maybe Brent Taylor should throw his hands up and admit
he is wrong when the numbers keep coming in from the US Department of
Education and the State of California showing an annual increase in rates of
autism."
But Prof Taylor said there had been no well-founded criticism of his work.
"Other researchers in this and other countries have done and published
similar studies to ours and all have found the same results as we did," he
added.