Dr. Andrew Wakefield's response on YouTube to the measles outbreak in South Wales Apr 16, 2013

More Questions for Dr. Salisbury     Dr. Wakefield on vaccine failure

UK Measles Outbreaks

Statement from Dr Andrew Wakefield

10 4 2013

The British government is entirely culpable for measles outbreaks. In the wake of further media distortion, misrepresentation and ignorance in relation to the measles outbreak in Wales, it is important to clarify some key facts.

In 1998, following an analysis of all pre-licensing studies of MMR vaccine safety I recommended the use of single measles vaccine in preference to MMR. This remains my position.

At that time, in contrast with the false assertions of many commentators, including Richard Horton, Editor of the Lancet, and vaccine millionaire Paul Offit, the single vaccines were licensed in UK and freely available to the British public.

While vaccination uptake fell from February 1998, there was a reciprocal increase in the uptake of single measles vaccine – a fact that is never acknowledged in the press. Vaccination clinics administered many thousands of doses of measles vaccine and children were “protected”.

Six months later, in September 1998, the British Government withdrew the importation license for the single vaccines, effectively blocking this option for parents.

Measles cases in the UK rose when the government withdrew the importation license for the single measles vaccine leaving concerned parents with no choice.

When I demanded to know why, if the government’s principal concern was to protect children from measles, it would prevent parents with genuine safety concerns over MMR from protecting their children, Elizabeth Miller of the Health Protection Agency responded “…..if we allowed parents the choice of single measles vaccines it would destroy our MMR program.” The government’s concern seemed to be to protect the MMR program over and above the protection of children.

MMR vaccine is not safe.

Despite the claim of David Salisbury, head of the UK’s Immunization Division, that MMR has, “an exemplary safety record,” two of the three brands introduced in 1988 had to be withdrawn for safety reasons – they caused meningitis.

Government officials had approved these dangerous vaccines – Pluserix and Immravax – giving them the great majority of the UK market despite knowing they were high risk and despite having been warned explicitly of their dangers. These government officials put price before children’s health and have been seeking to cover up this shameful fact ever since.

MMR vaccine can cause autism

The US government have paid out millions of dollars to children whose autism followed vaccine-induced brain damage. A recent government concession in the US Vaccine Court confirms that the parents’ claims were valid all along.

In a recently published December 13th 2012 vaccine court ruling, hundreds of thousands of dollars were awarded to Ryan Mojabi,ⁱ whose parents described how “MMR vaccinations”, caused a “severe and debilitating injury to his brain, diagnosed as Autism Spectrum Disorder (‘ASD’).”

Later the same month, the government suffered a second major defeat when young Emily Moller from Houston won compensation following a vaccine-related brain injury that, once again, involved MMR and resulted in autism.

The cases follow similar successful petitions in the Italian and US courts (including Hannah Polingⁱⁱ, Bailey Banksⁱⁱⁱ, Misty Hyatt^iv, Kienan Freeman^v, Valentio Bocca^vi and Julia Grimes^vvi) in which the governments conceded or the court ruled that vaccines had caused brain injury. In turn, this injury led to an ASD diagnosis. MMR vaccine was the common denominator in these cases.

Live Public Debate

The more light that is shone on this subject by way of informed, balanced debate, the better. I am offering to debate any serious challenger on MMR vaccine safety and the role of MMR in autism, live, in public and televised.

i http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/CAMPBELL-SMITH.MOJABI- PROFFER.12.13.2012.pdf

ii http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html and http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/CAMPBELLSMITH.%20DOE77082710.pdf

iii http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Abell.BANKS.02-0738V.pdf (see footnote 4)

iv http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/06/eveningnews/main3915703.shtml

v http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/HASTINGS.Freeman.pdf

vi http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2160054/MMR-A-mothers-victory-The-vast-majority-doctors- say-link-triple-jab-autism-Italian-court-case-reignite-controversial-debate.html

vii http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/MORAN.LAWSON011211.pdf

TWO MORE LANDMARK COURT JUDGMENTS FIND MMR CAUSED AUTISM

16 Jan 2013

A second judgment is reported by award winning investigative journalist David Kirby in the Huffington Post on 15 January - here.

These rulings come months after a judge in Italy awarded £140,000 to an Italian couple whose son had autism after his routine childhood MMR inoculation.

PARENTS RESPOND TO LANDMARK MMR JUDGMENT IN ITALY

16 6 2012

The Saturday Dail Mail reported the landmark decision of an Italian court that the MMR is responsible for the devastating disability - autism - of nine-year old Valentino Bocca. This decision, following the submission of independent forensic doctors, is now accepted by the Italian government.

Parents of CRYSHAME strongly support this judgment within our European community and ask for it to be treated seriously. We call for Parliament and the Department of Health to reopen the debate and heed our repeated calls to investigate valid parent concerns about the safety of this vaccine and investigate the striking similarities experienced in some of the UK autism cases. It can no longer be called coincidence that figures show a stark rise in the disorder since the introduction of MMR in 1988.

Editors Notes

1. Link to Sue Reid's report in today's Mail: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article- 2160054/MMR-A-mothers-victory

2. Research into autism and bowel damage which began at the Royal Free Hospital in the late 1990s and early 2000s has now been stopped. Currently there is no record of new research into autism and bowel disease.

3. Recent research led by Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge, has found the prevalence of autism among children in the UK is one-in-64.

SICK CHILDREN ABANDONED BY THE NHS: "CHANGING LIVES"—JON EDWARD'S STORY

2 5 2012

Jon Edward's story is the first of several trailers about Changing Lives, produced by the Autism Media Channel, showing the plight of children with autism and bowel disease who, rejected by the NHS, are then treated in the United States.

Jon, 14, has severe autism and inflammatory bowel disease. The Changing Lives trailer shows the dramatic change before and after his treatment—before when the NHS could offer no treatment and after when he was treated in the US—and the despair and hope his parents go through.

YouTube Link:Changing Lives

Under the NHS Jon Edward's bowel problems remained untreated whilst his body became slowly emaciated and severely underweight. This is shocking as the video vividly shows. Yet NHS paediatricians continue to declare there is nothing wrong with Jon. Abandoned by the NHS, Jon's despairing mother had no alternative but to take him to the US.

In the US Jon receives the treatment he needs, but at great cost to his parents, as well as the added difficulties of flying a sick autistic child across the Atlantic. Such treatment is beyond the pocket of many parents who want to see their child's suffering relieved but are left to the mercy of a disinterested NHS.

UK autistic children with bowel disease are offered little or no treatment by the NHS—unless they are fortunate to live close to the London teaching hospitals. British medicine does not recognise the bowel condition associated with autism. No research is currently carried out into why autistic children are blighted by bowel disease which causes constant pain and stunted development amongst other symptoms.

Many autistic children are denied the right to free and excellent NHS treatment most families take for granted.

Changing Livesis the first step in a campaign committed to redressing this injustice.

CryShame is bringing the injustice portrayed in the Autism Media Channel Changing Lives video to the attention of the UK public. CryShame hopes that treatment and research will be made available and sick people's lives to be changed for the better.

Autistic people have the right to the same standard of medical care as every other person in the UK.

Autism Media Channel

Autism Mothers

A Personal Message From Professor John Walker-Smith

14 3 2012

I wish to thank very much, everyone who sent messages of support and greeting to me, concerning my recent successful Appeal to the High Court in the Royal Courts of Justice, presided over by Mr. Justice Mitting. He stated concerning what had happened to me that it would be a misfortune should this ever happen again.

I shall be publishing at the end of the month with the Memoir Club, a second and updated edition of my autobiography, Enduring Memories. It will contain a chapter called The Trial. This will indicate my personal response to the GMC Hearing and Appeal. enquiries should be addressed to the Memoir Club, Durham e-mail memoirclub@msn.com

with kind regards

John

Quashing of GMC findings against Prof Walker-Smith

7 3 2012

Cryshame parents welcome with immense relief the end of the eight year ordeal of Prof John Walker-Smith and the quashing of all substantive charges against him in the High Court, and wish him their heartfelt congratulations at finally clearing his name.

In an unflamboyant 70 page judgment Sir John Mitting was unable to establish any reasoning behind the GMC's findings, relating either to the ordering of inappropriate investigative procedures on children, or to the claim that the controversial 1998 Wakefield Lancet paper (of which Prof Walker-Smith was senior author) was based a research protocol 172-96 which the GMC further alleged to be funded by the Legal Aid Board rather than an "early report" reviewing the cases of patients seen entirely on the basis of clinical need, as stated. These allegations, which were originally made against Prof Walker-Smith (as well as Dr Andrew Wakefield and Prof Simon Murch) by journalist Brian Deer and Liberal-Democrat politician Evan Harris in the Sunday Times in 2004, have now been shown to be completely unfounded.

This judgment not only vindicates Prof Walker-Smith (one of two acknowledged world pioneers in the field of paediatric-gastroenterology) but also families seeking treatment for autistic children, and now adults, with clinical issues - particularly gut related - who have been denied appropriate investigation and treatment for more than a decade in British hospitals as a consequence of the witch-hunt against Prof Walker-Smith and colleagues, conducted by both the GMC and parts of the media. Cryshame particularly regrets the present failure of the Leveson Inquiry to look in to a succession of complaints regarding the media's handling of these matters, which has been to the detriment of thousands of sick British children.

We note that the charges against Prof Walker-Smith - which have now been proven false - were integral to the case brought against Andrew Wakefield. We believe that many people in the medical profession and in journalism have known that these charges were flawed and unsustainable in a proper court of law for a long time, but the defence of the vaccine programme has taken precedence over truth and justice.

The Walker-Smith Appeal, the British Media and the Boselely Problem

18 1 2012

Following the BMJ’s campaign to discredit Dr Andrew Wakefield with smears that he falsified data in the 1998 Lancet - reporting that parents of eight children had seen the first behavioural signs of autism following MMR vaccination and that eleven children had developed gut problems - new research is published in January 2012 confirming the association between inflammatory bowel disease and autism.

Latest research from Hornig and Lipkin this year identifies Sutterella bacteria as a possible source of gut inflammation in autistic children. The research is here.

Sutterella RNA gene sequences were found in 12 of 23 autistic children with bowel disease but in none of 9 control children who were not autistic. This points to the presences of inflammation in the gut of autistic children - a finding that the BMJ dismiss in their recent review of the autism-gut literature, proposing that signs of inflammation such as lymphonodular hyperplasia are normal occurrences in children.

A useful background discussion to this technical paper from Paul Whitely of the University of Sunderland is here.

AUTISM PARENTS RESPOND TO DR ANDREW WAKEFIELD’S LIBEL WRIT AGAINST THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL

9 1 2012

Almost a year after the British Medical Journal first charged Dr Andrew Wakefield with scientific fraud on 5 January 2011, Wakefield has filed a suit against the Defendants, the BMJ, its editor Dr Fiona Godlee and investigative journalist Brian Deer who wrote the BMJ article (here). The article claimed that Wakefield falsified the findings of a case series published in the Lancet in 1998, which reported on 12 autistic child patients treated for bowel problems at the Royal Free Hospital in the mid-1990s.

Wakefield has now hit back in a suit claiming Deer’s article is defamatory in accusing Wakefield of ‘fixing’ the case study and using ‘bogus data’. Deer’s article was accompanied by an editorial from Dr Godlee saying the Lancet paper was ‘an elaborate fraud’.

Dr Wakefield's 'letter of demand', sent by his lawyers to Mr Deer and Dr Godlee, lists inaccuracies in Deer's article and their legal implications (here) and demands retraction of the BMJ articles and apologies.

In January 2012, Dr David Lewis, a research microbiologist and whistleblower, submitted a complaint to the UK Research Integrity Office exposing the unethical behaviour of Mr Deer and Dr Godlee (here). He studied all of Dr Wakefield's research papers used in preparing the 1998 Lancet article to assess whether he falsified the data, and concluded that he had not. Lewis' sent an earlier report exonerating Wakefield of scientific fraud to the BMJ. He alleges that they cherry picked selective data, and ignored the bulk of the data challenging the BMJ articles, to construct an account that all thirteen of the Lancet authors were guilty of institutional research misconduct. To add to the charge that the BMJ wrongly accused Wakefield of scientific fraud, is the further charge that the BMJ selected parts of Lewis' analysis to extend their campaign against Wakefield to all his research colleagues

In his defamation suit Wakefield states that Deer’s charges of fraud are false in offering a “re-analysis” of the medical records, many of which, the suit claims, “the Defendants know were not in the possession of or used by Dr Wakefield”. The suit charges Godlee, Deer and others at the BMJ of using “the BMJ to launch an unprecedented personal attack against a doctor who was part of a group of well-respected physicians that presented a case study that simply suggested there might be a connection between the MMR vaccine ... and autism and that suggested that further research is warranted”.

CryShame is a group of parents many of whom saw their children succumb to autism and bowel disease following the MMR. We applaud Wakefield’s decision to challenge Godlee and Deer’s claims against him and hope from the bottom of our heart that he receives justice.

Today the number of children suffering from autism may be as many as one in 64 and many parents continue today to witness their children regress into autism following MMR. But since the campaign to discredit Wakefield, there has been no research in the UK to investigate this pattern. The public are repeatedly told by government and the medical profession that the MMR is safe and not associated with autism, and yet anecdotally parents of autistic children who trusted the government discover the opposite is true. There has been no scientific explanation for this temporal association between regressive autism and the MMR.

The BMJ’s attack on Wakefield has been a gigantic distraction from research in the UK to uncover the causes of autism and bowel disease. It is vitally important for existing autistic children, and for the thousands of children who will, given current medical ignorance, regress into autism over the coming years, that research into the role of vaccines in the genesis of autism is put back on track.

CRYSHAME STATEMENT 21 January 2011

In view of the latest attacks by Brian Deer on the reputations of Professor John Walker-Smith and Dr Andrew Wakefield published in the British Medical Journal, CryShame is stating its continuing support for these doctors who took seriously the severe health problems our children suffer.

The latest attacks have drawn together senior members of the medical profession in the UK and US in denouncing evidence of the Lancet twelve children's conditions recorded in the 1998 Lancet paper.

This is a major insult to the 12 Lancet children whose parents continue to attest to the accuracy of the Lancet 's findings of regressive autism following MMR. But it is also an insult to the many children around the world whose lives have been destroyed following the MMR vaccine. These children have bowel damage and associated problems, epilepsy and other disorders as well as suffering irreversible brain damage. The temporal sequence of autism following MMR is a pattern that demands serious research to establish causation.

No research into why our children regressed into autism following the MMR has been undertaken in the UK since the early 2000's. Rather expensive medical research has been undertaken with the express aim of disproving Wakefield et al's work with no positive outcomes for children with regressive autism. With the mounting epidemic of autism now one in 64 children - or one in 100 on a conservative estimate - medical scientists' embargo on further research into regressive autism is shameful.

The Doctors who were part of the former paediatric gastroenterology unit at the Royal Free Hospital treated our children with the utmost care in trying to research and alleviate their suffering. Professor Walker-Smith and Dr Andrew Wakefield bear the brunt of the continuing animosity because of this. We therefore want to publish the statement below from Dr Wakefield as he would like parents and friends to know how much he values their continued support.

Until our children receive the justice they deserve, and a proper programme of medical research and treatment is implemented, we are committed to fighting on the children and doctors' behalf.

CRYSHAME

Andrew Wakefield's thank you to parents

To all parents:

"I am immensely grateful to you for your wonderful support. Your voices are being heard around the world and that is precisely why our opponents have become so vicious. The only hope of victory for those who oppose the recognition of what has happened to your children for what it is and a Safety-First vaccine policy, is to divide us. Together we have come too far, for too long, for good reason, to be divided. Each attack makes us stronger and more determined. Science and safety must be the new language of vaccine policy. Solidarity will ensure this happens."

Andy

GMC FINDING ON FACT – 28 JAN 2010

DR WAKEFIELD AND PROFESSORS MURCH AND WALKER- SMITH

A STATEMENT FROM PARENTS OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN TREATED BY THE THREE DOCTORS

The GMC was WRONG to find the doctors guilty on the findings of fact when no parent or patient was a complainant in this fitness to practice hearing. The Panel has chosen the facts it wants, and rejected those it doesn’t want, to find the doctors guilty on fact – facts that go back 16 years.

The evidence

Parents heard the doctors put up a robust defence. Documents and evidence produced by the doctors showed

• the 1995 ethics committee letter granting approval for the Lancet research was produced
• the research followed the terms of the approval given
• the Lancet editor knew that Wakefield was doing a separate legal aided study
• all the children were on the autistic spectrum
• the children were recruited as described in the Lancet paper
• the use of invasive interventions – colonoscopies, etc – was clinically justified
• no child was harmed; no parent refused consent; no parent complained

However, the GMC chose to ignore the 1995 ethical approval and substitute a 1996 approval, allowing them to reach the findings they did – a blatant disregard for justice. They also insisted that ‘pervasive developmental disorder’ was not the same as autism spectrum disorders which of course it is; and that only children who had had the measles or measles/rubella vaccine should have been admitted onto the project, not those who had had the MMR. The hearing moved the goalposts so that the doctors had no chance of overturning the serious charges against them.

The injustice

CryShame

Cryshame is a pressure group made up of parents who saw their children regress into autism after the MMR jab. Cryshame wholeheartedly supports the three doctors, Dr Andrew Wakefield, Professors Simon Much and John Walker-Smith, each an expert in paediatric gastroenterology – Professor Walker-Smith an expert of world class.

In 1998 the three doctors published a small peer- reviewed investigation in The Lancet of 12 children with autism and painful bowel disorders – the subject of the GMC hearing. They followed this with other peer-reviewed publications of larger samples of autistic children and controls. Their findings have been replicated in published research in other parts of the world. But since GMC’s case began research in the UK was halted. In 2006 only £1m was spent on autism research in the UK. Yet the numbers of children with autism reached 1 in 66 in 2009, from one in 2000 in 1987 – a thirty- fold increase during the period since when MMR was introduced. 

We believe that eventually this so far unstoppable increase will force a rethink on the role of vaccination. All the US Presidential candidates in 2008 committed to funding research into vaccines and autism.  

This whole episode has been driven by the government and the GMC's desire to vilify the doctors and discredit their work. Despite their robust defence, the costs to the doctors and their patients have been immense:

• their clinical practice and research has been put on hold to the detriment of the many children with bowel disease, including but not only autistic children
• research into the role of vaccinations in the onset of autism and bowel disease has been suspended in the UK to the detriment of children who became autistic following the MMR jab, in some cases within days
• despite many parents seeing their children regress into autistic after the MMR jab, few doctors or medical scientists have investigated this pattern of possible causality. However anecdotal, this pattern is significant and demands investigation given continuing scientific ignorance of what is causing the growing epidemic of autism
• the majority of scientists who have investigated the link between autism and MMR focus on discrediting Wakefield . They offer no new findings about why a growing number of children are becoming autistic. For these scientists this alarming fact –   with untold consequences for society patients and parents – remains unremarkable
• the hearing was used to discourage research into vaccine safety by publicly vilifying the exemplary character of three doctors to discourage other medical scientists from investigating vaccine safety

 Background Notes

1.  The length of time between the events on which the charges are based and the time of the GMC hearing was up to 16 years, so eroding the   witnesses' memory of the original events and the availability of key documents lost or destroyed in the intervening years

2.  The hearing is the longest and most expensive hearing in the GMC's history. Estimated at over £10m, this money could have been spent on  autism research

3.  None of the children or their parents referred to by the prosecuting counsel was a complainant in this hearing. No parent lodged a complaint against the three doctors. Indeed parents supported the doctors throughout the hearing.

4.  None of the children and parents cited at the hearing was legally represented. There was no attempt to secure representation for them

5.  One of the initial complainants/informants in February 2004 was a journalist who continued to publish articles on the defendants in the Sunday Times without revealing his interest in the case

6.  The parents believe the hearing was a witch-hunt conducted by government, the GMC and pharmaceutical interests to discredit the doctors, to ensure they are ‘struck off' and cannot practice, and to discourage medical scientists from conducting independent research into vaccine safety

7.    In 2002, Wakefield et al found measles virus in the bowel of 75 out of 91 autistic children who had had MMR but not wild measles , but rarely in the controls ( Uhlmann et al, ‘Potential viral pathogenic mechanism for new variant inflammatory bowel disease', Jnl of Clinical Pathololgy : Molecular Pathology, 55)

8.    The only study to partially replicate Wakefield's 2002 study and arrive at different findings studied only five children (out of a total of 25) who had received MMR before onset of autism and bowel disease, compared with 75 such children in the 2002 ( Hornig et al (2008) ‘ Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy : A Case-Control Study', P losone )

9.    Wakefield’s work has not been fully replicated and therefore it has not been discredited