Comments on: Salon retracts 2005 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. piece on alleged autism-vaccine link

By: Sullivan

Sullivan — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:37:31 +0000

What’s next?

The BMJ indicated that they would review papers by Wakefield that are in their journals. This includes the Uhlman paper in which Mr. Wakefield’s team claimed to find vaccine strain measles virus RNA in tissue samples.

The PCR methods were shown to be poor by Stephen Bustin. Mr. Wakefield was shown to have ignored negative test results from his own lab in the Royal Free. Avreplication attempt was negative. The patient pool had some of the lancet kids, if not all, plus other kids with the same biased referall history. Mr. Wakefield had a conflict of interest in multiple undeclared ways.

Seems highly likely that study will soon be retracted.

By: ivanoransky

ivanoransky — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:00:04 +0000

Done, thanks. You have a real, um, knack, Prescott.

By: the next Prescott Niles

the next Prescott Niles — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 19:51:09 +0000

While you're in cleanup mode, you might want to fix the spelling of thimerosal (it's -sal, not -sol) in your lede and in the final quote from Mnookin.

By: Chemjobber

Chemjobber — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:35:00 +0000

In the spirit of fairness, I hammer at this comment pretty hard in this blogpost here: http://bit.ly/esDAjD

By: ivanoransky

ivanoransky — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:26:42 +0000

Fixed above — thanks.

By: ivanoransky

ivanoransky — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:26:12 +0000

Fixed — thanks.

By: Marco

Marco — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 07:39:40 +0000

Hmmm…looks like there is a misquotation in this piece.

Seth Mnookin is cited as stating “It’s ridiculous to assume there are going to be things that aren’t accurate.”

Maybe a “not” is missing? Bit odd to have a corrections page if it is ridiculous to assume there would be anything that is not accurate

By: DSM

DSM — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 05:13:42 +0000

“It’s ridiculous to assume there are going to be things that aren’t accurate. ”

I think “aren’t going to be” was meant..

By: ivanoransky

ivanoransky — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 19:06:35 +0000

Good question about timing. I don't know of any study of media outlet retractions like this, but in a recent post we wrote about a study that found journal retractions taking place years after the original studies were published -- in one case nine years.

By: Glenn Fleishman

Glenn Fleishman — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 18:50:55 +0000

Without being a conspiracy theorist, I have wondered if the vaccine scare was funded by firms that have a vested interest in preventing epidemiological or clinical evidence from emerging about their products, like pesticide makers. Cigarette companies certainly spent decades funding groups to try to push the blame elsewhere, and continue to use money to sell story that cigarettes aren’t a significant contributor to cancer and lung disease.

The realist in me says, though, that the millions of synthetic chemicals to which we are exposed constantly in food, water, and air in unexpected and untested combinations likely are part of the root of all kinds of health issues.

(There’s also an argument to be made that autism hasn’t been on the rise. That better diagnostic tools and testing, and better mainstream acceptance of autism as part of life, has led to a far greater diagnosis. There’s no apples-to-apples comparison with 2011 diagnosis versus, say, 1996.)