MMR-Wakefield at it again

[Steve Hunt]

If my memory is correct the general consensus was that the best way forward was to try & persuade unsure parents the MMR jab was safe..

It clearly didn't work, though - as we all now know.

It was never going to work. Well, not until Wakfield's claims had been conclusively proven wrong.

[colinthewarriormonkey]

Quote Hillmans
That's because his reasoning is sound, but I've tried to spell it out to you before and you either can't or won't understand it.
Mass vaccination saves the government money in treating childhood illnesses but costs the lives of individual children and causes brain damage in others.
You speak for the government and I , and Doctor Wakefield ,speak for the dead children and those who will be killed by future vaccination.
Simple as that really.

Obviously the parents of the kids they killed want to sponsor a doctor who is speaking out to prevent other deaths - preventing other deaths is one of the reasons for suing the bastards responsible for the policy.

Bollocks

Wakefield did nothing more than think "hey there's been a lot more autism around since the MMR came in" then tried to back this up by using a miniscule sample group and gave leading questions to the parents of these 12 - yes 12 children.

A study group of 12 tells you absolutely jack shit about the wide reaching implications of anything. If you carried out an anecdotal study of the players and sub in Man UTD, you couldn't then publish a scientific paper saying everyone in the country is good at football.

This was an idiot who managed to get a stupid study published in the Lancet (shame on them), and then the story was perpetrated by an out of control press.

At the time, there was no other link, anecdotal or otherwise to the MMR and autism, despite the vaccine being used all over the world.

You should read this.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

[colinthewarriormonkey]

Hillman, my two girls were very young when this scare broke.

As a consequence I paid privately to have the three injections administered separately.

You cannot blame the parents. Your child's health is the most precious thing. You'd never forgive yourself if you thought your actions had caused them to have autism.


I have never understood why, regardless of the validity of Wakefield's claims, once the story broke, the government did not offer separate injections as an alternative for concerned parents.

Because the government can't suddenly start spending shitloads more money, because some fucking nutter has made something up and people are too stupid to find out whether it's true or not.

They'd be doing nothing else all day long.

[colinthewarriormonkey]

There's a body count because of these anti vaccination oddballs.

And because the Government refused to offer the three vaccinations separately to concerned parents, Ralph.

We had to pay privately. It wasn't cheap. Not all parents could afford that.

There are a number of reasons the government didn't offer multiple jabs.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/the ... SApp_Other

And there is no sensible debate left to be had. Andrew Wakefield's claims had zero validity.

True or not, once the scare broke, that's not really the issue. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle. I thought the Government's response was wholly inadequate. If children have suffered because their parents were scared of MMR & could not afford separate jabs, then the government has to take it's share of the blame.

Never forget that the Blair's refused to confirm or deny if their youngest lad had had MMR. What effect do you think that had on concerned parents such as myself?

Ah it's Tony Blair's fault not Andrew Wakefield's. I see.

I'm guessing that you weren't a parent of young children when the scare broke, Ralph.

I hate to go 'all Ray Houghton' on you, but unless you were in that position, perhaps it is hard for you to understand.

Just imagine that you had given your child MMR and he/she subsequently developed autism. No matter how discredited Wakefield is now, you would always wonder if your actions had caused the condition.

Well, I would. I wasn't prepared to take that risk with my kids lives. Hence, sourcing and paying for three separate jabs.
Tony Blair faced the same choices that my wife & I did at the time. I was more than happy to tell anyone that asked me what we had decided to do. Not so the Blairs.

But I guess you had to be there, Ralph.

I had young children at the time who were going to be getting the jab, so I did a bit of research and found out that it was bollocks.

It wasn't difficult to do.

[Steve Hunt]

Hillman, my two girls were very young when this scare broke.

As a consequence I paid privately to have the three injections administered separately.

You cannot blame the parents. Your child's health is the most precious thing. You'd never forgive yourself if you thought your actions had caused them to have autism.


I have never understood why, regardless of the validity of Wakefield's claims, once the story broke, the government did not offer separate injections as an alternative for concerned parents.

Because the government can't suddenly start spending shitloads more money, because some fucking nutter has made something up and people are too stupid to find out whether it's true or not.

They'd be doing nothing else all day long.

Wakefield was not, at the time, perceived as a nutter, colin.

He had a well respected position at the Royal Free Hospital. His paper co-written with twelve other authors was published in The Lancet

As I said to Ralph, this wasn't some bloke operating out of his shed.

This was massive news and some of the press (The Mail etc) supported his findings.

That was the problem - hence the widespread panic.

[Steve Hunt]

There's a body count because of these anti vaccination oddballs.

And because the Government refused to offer the three vaccinations separately to concerned parents, Ralph.

We had to pay privately. It wasn't cheap. Not all parents could afford that.

There are a number of reasons the government didn't offer multiple jabs.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/the ... SApp_Other

And there is no sensible debate left to be had. Andrew Wakefield's claims had zero validity.

True or not, once the scare broke, that's not really the issue. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle. I thought the Government's response was wholly inadequate. If children have suffered because their parents were scared of MMR & could not afford separate jabs, then the government has to take it's share of the blame.

Never forget that the Blair's refused to confirm or deny if their youngest lad had had MMR. What effect do you think that had on concerned parents such as myself?

Ah it's Tony Blair's fault not Andrew Wakefield's. I see.

I'm guessing that you weren't a parent of young children when the scare broke, Ralph.

I hate to go 'all Ray Houghton' on you, but unless you were in that position, perhaps it is hard for you to understand.

Just imagine that you had given your child MMR and he/she subsequently developed autism. No matter how discredited Wakefield is now, you would always wonder if your actions had caused the condition.

Well, I would. I wasn't prepared to take that risk with my kids lives. Hence, sourcing and paying for three separate jabs.
Tony Blair faced the same choices that my wife & I did at the time. I was more than happy to tell anyone that asked me what we had decided to do. Not so the Blairs.

But I guess you had to be there, Ralph.

I had young children at the time who were going to be getting the jab, so I did a bit of research and found out that it was bollocks.

It wasn't difficult to do.

Really?

Funny how many others, myself included, were more sceptical, colin. Especially given the claim and counter claim making headline news on an almost daily basis at the height of the scare.

Remember thalidomide, colin? That was foremost in my thoughts at the time. The Blair's refusal to confirm/deny if their lad had had it didn't help either.

So i did my own research and paid to have three separate jabs for both my girls.

[Steve Hunt]

This was an idiot who managed to get a stupid study published in the Lancet (shame on them), and then the story was perpetrated by an out of control press.

Indeed, colin.

But at the time, none of us were 100% sure. Were we?

I certainly wasn't & I was not prepared to play God with my two children's lives. The problem is that by refusing access to the old triple jab (which you & I would have had), many sceptical/worried/scared parents did not get their kids vaccinated at all.

The end result was inevitable. A rise in these preventable diseases.

[Steve Hunt]

You should read this.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

Interesting snippet here from your link:

But the biggest public health disaster of all – which everyone misses – was a sweet little baby called Leo. In December 2001 the Blairs were asked if their infant son had been given the MMR vaccine, and refused to answer, on the grounds that this would invade their child’s right to privacy. This stance was not entirely unreasonable, but its validity was somewhat undermined by Cherie Blair when she chose to reveal Leo’s vaccination history, in the process of promoting her autobiography, and also described the specific act of sexual intercourse which conceived him.
And while most other politicians were happy to clarify whether their children had had the vaccine, you could see how people might believe the Blairs were the kind of family not to have their children immunised: essentially, they had surrounded themselves with health cranks. There was Cherie Blair’s closest friend and aide, Carole Caplin, a new age guru and “life coach”. Cherie was reported to visit Carole’s mum, Sylvia Caplin, a spiritual guru who was viciously anti-MMR (“for a tiny child, the MMR is a ridiculous thing to do. It has definitely caused autism,” she told the Mail). They were also prominently associated with a new age healer called Jack Temple, who offered crystal dowsing, homeopathy, neolithic-circle healing in his suburban back garden, and some special breastfeeding technique which he reckoned made vaccines unnecessary.
Whatever you believe about the Blairs’ relationships, this is what the nation was thinking about when they refused to clarify whether they had given their child the MMR vaccine.
The MMR scare has created a small cottage industry of media analysis. In 2003 the Economic and Social Research Council published a paper on the media’s role in the public understanding of science, which sampled all the major science media stories from January to September 2002, the peak of the scare. It found 32% of all the stories written in that period about MMR mentioned Leo Blair, and Wakefield was only mentioned in 25%: Leo Blair was a bigger figure in this story than Wakefield.


And people wonder why parents were sceptical?

[Ralph]

You should read this.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

Interesting snippet here from your link:

But the biggest public health disaster of all – which everyone misses – was a sweet little baby called Leo. In December 2001 the Blairs were asked if their infant son had been given the MMR vaccine, and refused to answer, on the grounds that this would invade their child’s right to privacy. This stance was not entirely unreasonable, but its validity was somewhat undermined by Cherie Blair when she chose to reveal Leo’s vaccination history, in the process of promoting her autobiography, and also described the specific act of sexual intercourse which conceived him.
And while most other politicians were happy to clarify whether their children had had the vaccine, you could see how people might believe the Blairs were the kind of family not to have their children immunised: essentially, they had surrounded themselves with health cranks. There was Cherie Blair’s closest friend and aide, Carole Caplin, a new age guru and “life coach”. Cherie was reported to visit Carole’s mum, Sylvia Caplin, a spiritual guru who was viciously anti-MMR (“for a tiny child, the MMR is a ridiculous thing to do. It has definitely caused autism,” she told the Mail). They were also prominently associated with a new age healer called Jack Temple, who offered crystal dowsing, homeopathy, neolithic-circle healing in his suburban back garden, and some special breastfeeding technique which he reckoned made vaccines unnecessary.
Whatever you believe about the Blairs’ relationships, this is what the nation was thinking about when they refused to clarify whether they had given their child the MMR vaccine.
The MMR scare has created a small cottage industry of media analysis. In 2003 the Economic and Social Research Council published a paper on the media’s role in the public understanding of science, which sampled all the major science media stories from January to September 2002, the peak of the scare. It found 32% of all the stories written in that period about MMR mentioned Leo Blair, and Wakefield was only mentioned in 25%: Leo Blair was a bigger figure in this story than Wakefield.


And people wonder why parents were sceptical?

Bloke needs to give his head a wobble.

[Steve Hunt]

You should read this.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

Interesting snippet here from your link:

But the biggest public health disaster of all – which everyone misses – was a sweet little baby called Leo. In December 2001 the Blairs were asked if their infant son had been given the MMR vaccine, and refused to answer, on the grounds that this would invade their child’s right to privacy. This stance was not entirely unreasonable, but its validity was somewhat undermined by Cherie Blair when she chose to reveal Leo’s vaccination history, in the process of promoting her autobiography, and also described the specific act of sexual intercourse which conceived him.
And while most other politicians were happy to clarify whether their children had had the vaccine, you could see how people might believe the Blairs were the kind of family not to have their children immunised: essentially, they had surrounded themselves with health cranks. There was Cherie Blair’s closest friend and aide, Carole Caplin, a new age guru and “life coach”. Cherie was reported to visit Carole’s mum, Sylvia Caplin, a spiritual guru who was viciously anti-MMR (“for a tiny child, the MMR is a ridiculous thing to do. It has definitely caused autism,” she told the Mail). They were also prominently associated with a new age healer called Jack Temple, who offered crystal dowsing, homeopathy, neolithic-circle healing in his suburban back garden, and some special breastfeeding technique which he reckoned made vaccines unnecessary.
Whatever you believe about the Blairs’ relationships, this is what the nation was thinking about when they refused to clarify whether they had given their child the MMR vaccine.
The MMR scare has created a small cottage industry of media analysis. In 2003 the Economic and Social Research Council published a paper on the media’s role in the public understanding of science, which sampled all the major science media stories from January to September 2002, the peak of the scare. It found 32% of all the stories written in that period about MMR mentioned Leo Blair, and Wakefield was only mentioned in 25%: Leo Blair was a bigger figure in this story than Wakefield.


And people wonder why parents were sceptical?

Bloke needs to give his head a wobble.

Who?

The author or Blair?

Or both?

[Ralph]

You should read this.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

Interesting snippet here from your link:

But the biggest public health disaster of all – which everyone misses – was a sweet little baby called Leo. In December 2001 the Blairs were asked if their infant son had been given the MMR vaccine, and refused to answer, on the grounds that this would invade their child’s right to privacy. This stance was not entirely unreasonable, but its validity was somewhat undermined by Cherie Blair when she chose to reveal Leo’s vaccination history, in the process of promoting her autobiography, and also described the specific act of sexual intercourse which conceived him.
And while most other politicians were happy to clarify whether their children had had the vaccine, you could see how people might believe the Blairs were the kind of family not to have their children immunised: essentially, they had surrounded themselves with health cranks. There was Cherie Blair’s closest friend and aide, Carole Caplin, a new age guru and “life coach”. Cherie was reported to visit Carole’s mum, Sylvia Caplin, a spiritual guru who was viciously anti-MMR (“for a tiny child, the MMR is a ridiculous thing to do. It has definitely caused autism,” she told the Mail). They were also prominently associated with a new age healer called Jack Temple, who offered crystal dowsing, homeopathy, neolithic-circle healing in his suburban back garden, and some special breastfeeding technique which he reckoned made vaccines unnecessary.
Whatever you believe about the Blairs’ relationships, this is what the nation was thinking about when they refused to clarify whether they had given their child the MMR vaccine.
The MMR scare has created a small cottage industry of media analysis. In 2003 the Economic and Social Research Council published a paper on the media’s role in the public understanding of science, which sampled all the major science media stories from January to September 2002, the peak of the scare. It found 32% of all the stories written in that period about MMR mentioned Leo Blair, and Wakefield was only mentioned in 25%: Leo Blair was a bigger figure in this story than Wakefield.


And people wonder why parents were sceptical?

Bloke needs to give his head a wobble.

Who?

The author or Blair?

Or both?

In this instance the author. I only recognise one name he says the whole nation was thinking about at the time of the MMR scare. The fact the Blairs believe in all this new age bollocks means their opinion on the MMR jab matters even less. I usually like Ben Goldacre but this is rubbish from beginning to end.

[Steve Hunt]

You should read this.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

Interesting snippet here from your link:

But the biggest public health disaster of all – which everyone misses – was a sweet little baby called Leo. In December 2001 the Blairs were asked if their infant son had been given the MMR vaccine, and refused to answer, on the grounds that this would invade their child’s right to privacy. This stance was not entirely unreasonable, but its validity was somewhat undermined by Cherie Blair when she chose to reveal Leo’s vaccination history, in the process of promoting her autobiography, and also described the specific act of sexual intercourse which conceived him.
And while most other politicians were happy to clarify whether their children had had the vaccine, you could see how people might believe the Blairs were the kind of family not to have their children immunised: essentially, they had surrounded themselves with health cranks. There was Cherie Blair’s closest friend and aide, Carole Caplin, a new age guru and “life coach”. Cherie was reported to visit Carole’s mum, Sylvia Caplin, a spiritual guru who was viciously anti-MMR (“for a tiny child, the MMR is a ridiculous thing to do. It has definitely caused autism,” she told the Mail). They were also prominently associated with a new age healer called Jack Temple, who offered crystal dowsing, homeopathy, neolithic-circle healing in his suburban back garden, and some special breastfeeding technique which he reckoned made vaccines unnecessary.
Whatever you believe about the Blairs’ relationships, this is what the nation was thinking about when they refused to clarify whether they had given their child the MMR vaccine.
The MMR scare has created a small cottage industry of media analysis. In 2003 the Economic and Social Research Council published a paper on the media’s role in the public understanding of science, which sampled all the major science media stories from January to September 2002, the peak of the scare. It found 32% of all the stories written in that period about MMR mentioned Leo Blair, and Wakefield was only mentioned in 25%: Leo Blair was a bigger figure in this story than Wakefield.


And people wonder why parents were sceptical?

Bloke needs to give his head a wobble.

Who?

The author or Blair?

Or both?

In this instance the author. I only recognise one name he says the whole nation was thinking about at the time of the MMR scare. The fact the Blairs believe in all this new age bollocks means their opinion on the MMR jab matters even less. I usually like Ben Goldacre but this is rubbish from beginning to end.

The deliberate ambiguity left by the Blair's regarding Leo's MMR did not exactly help the situation.

[colinthewarriormonkey]

There's a body count because of these anti vaccination oddballs.

And because the Government refused to offer the three vaccinations separately to concerned parents, Ralph.

We had to pay privately. It wasn't cheap. Not all parents could afford that.

There are a number of reasons the government didn't offer multiple jabs.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/the ... SApp_Other

And there is no sensible debate left to be had. Andrew Wakefield's claims had zero validity.

True or not, once the scare broke, that's not really the issue. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle. I thought the Government's response was wholly inadequate. If children have suffered because their parents were scared of MMR & could not afford separate jabs, then the government has to take it's share of the blame.

Never forget that the Blair's refused to confirm or deny if their youngest lad had had MMR. What effect do you think that had on concerned parents such as myself?

Ah it's Tony Blair's fault not Andrew Wakefield's. I see.

I'm guessing that you weren't a parent of young children when the scare broke, Ralph.

I hate to go 'all Ray Houghton' on you, but unless you were in that position, perhaps it is hard for you to understand.

Just imagine that you had given your child MMR and he/she subsequently developed autism. No matter how discredited Wakefield is now, you would always wonder if your actions had caused the condition.

Well, I would. I wasn't prepared to take that risk with my kids lives. Hence, sourcing and paying for three separate jabs.
Tony Blair faced the same choices that my wife & I did at the time. I was more than happy to tell anyone that asked me what we had decided to do. Not so the Blairs.

But I guess you had to be there, Ralph.

I had young children at the time who were going to be getting the jab, so I did a bit of research and found out that it was bollocks.

It wasn't difficult to do.

Really?

Funny how many others, myself included, were more sceptical, colin. Especially given the claim and counter claim making headline news on an almost daily basis at the height of the scare.

Remember thalidomide, colin? That was foremost in my thoughts at the time. The Blair's refusal to confirm/deny if their lad had had it didn't help either.

So i did my own research and paid to have three separate jabs for both my girls.

Well having learned what a vaccine was at school and why it is a vastly different thing to taking a drug, the thalidomide "link" didn't even enter my mind.

What I do remember thinking at the time was that there were indeed more diagnoses of autism around, in my day there was no autism. There were though a lot of kids labelled "little shits" and a quick kick up the arse was prescribed.

The fact there was more autism wis simply down to the fact that being a little shit was now given a label.

So having that in mind, and knowing what a vaccination is - I had no concerns whatsoever.

[colinthewarriormonkey]

This was an idiot who managed to get a stupid study published in the Lancet (shame on them), and then the story was perpetrated by an out of control press.

Indeed, colin.

But at the time, none of us were 100% sure. Were we?

I certainly wasn't & I was not prepared to play God with my two children's lives. The problem is that by refusing access to the old triple jab (which you & I would have had), many sceptical/worried/scared parents did not get their kids vaccinated at all.

The end result was inevitable. A rise in these preventable diseases.

I was - I called bullshit as soon as I heard it.

[colinthewarriormonkey]

You should read this.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

Interesting snippet here from your link:

But the biggest public health disaster of all – which everyone misses – was a sweet little baby called Leo. In December 2001 the Blairs were asked if their infant son had been given the MMR vaccine, and refused to answer, on the grounds that this would invade their child’s right to privacy. This stance was not entirely unreasonable, but its validity was somewhat undermined by Cherie Blair when she chose to reveal Leo’s vaccination history, in the process of promoting her autobiography, and also described the specific act of sexual intercourse which conceived him.
And while most other politicians were happy to clarify whether their children had had the vaccine, you could see how people might believe the Blairs were the kind of family not to have their children immunised: essentially, they had surrounded themselves with health cranks. There was Cherie Blair’s closest friend and aide, Carole Caplin, a new age guru and “life coach”. Cherie was reported to visit Carole’s mum, Sylvia Caplin, a spiritual guru who was viciously anti-MMR (“for a tiny child, the MMR is a ridiculous thing to do. It has definitely caused autism,” she told the Mail). They were also prominently associated with a new age healer called Jack Temple, who offered crystal dowsing, homeopathy, neolithic-circle healing in his suburban back garden, and some special breastfeeding technique which he reckoned made vaccines unnecessary.
Whatever you believe about the Blairs’ relationships, this is what the nation was thinking about when they refused to clarify whether they had given their child the MMR vaccine.
The MMR scare has created a small cottage industry of media analysis. In 2003 the Economic and Social Research Council published a paper on the media’s role in the public understanding of science, which sampled all the major science media stories from January to September 2002, the peak of the scare. It found 32% of all the stories written in that period about MMR mentioned Leo Blair, and Wakefield was only mentioned in 25%: Leo Blair was a bigger figure in this story than Wakefield.


And people wonder why parents were sceptical?

I agree entirely with you there.

Mind you I also remember this



Gummer feeding his daughter a burger to disprove BSE - people were outraged by this at the time.