The Clever Badger I'm not dead yet!

Autism and Antivaccination: High Order Woo (Updated)

The supposed link between childhood vaccinations and autism is not something I have much occasion to write about, largely because people like Orac at Respectful Insolence already have that topic covered very well.

That said, Orac has a post up now addressing the General Medical Council's ruling in the matter of Andrew Wakefield.  (The GMC is the regulating body for physicians in the UK, and Andrew Wakefield is the "researcher" who published the 1998 study claiming to link autisim spectrum disorders to the MMR vaccine.)

Any attempt on my part to summarize Orac's blistering discussion of the ruling would fail to do justice to it, so I encourage folks to click over and read the post itself.

I will highlight one part, which serves as a stark example of the consequences of Wakefield's fraud and the abject lunacy that it supports:

Indeed, in 2008, 14 years after measles had been declared under control in the U.K., the Health Protection Agency stated that, as a result of almost a decade of low mumps-measles-rubella (MMR) vaccination coverage across the UK, "the number of children susceptible to measles is now sufficient to support the continuous spread of measles" and declared measles to be endemic again in the U.K.

Stop and think about that.  A disease that had been controlled is now once again endemic due to the repercussions of a fraudulent study.

This is what happens when people stop thinking critically.

(UPDATE) Autism spectrum disorders are serious conditions that merit serious study, and families affected by them are understandably passionate about the topic.  Bogus studies like Wakefield's (and subsequent studies that presuppose Wakefield's conclusions) make it that much harder for people to sort out the good information from the bad, and ultimately hinder rather than advance the search to understand ASDs.   

(UPDATE 2) The Lancet has issued a full retraction of the 1998 Wakefield paper (thanks again to Orac).

-Jay

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