Here's what it said.
Findings
Onset of behavioural symptoms was associated, by the parents, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in eight of the 12 children, with measles infection in one child, and otitis media in another. All 12 children had intestinal abnormalities.
But its more than that.
Of course the paper did not say we found conclusive proof beyond a shadow of a doubt links between the vaccine and these issues.
And for one obvious reason.
There isn't any link. The paper was designed to introduce reasonable doubt for the legal team that was paying him to give them something they could use in court.
And in order to get even this paper written he had to fit a square peg in a round hole.
We learned during the subsequent investigation his methods were scientifically flawed, and down right dishonest.
That's why he is struck off the register and his paper retracted.
Read the following carefully
Mr 11, an American engineer, looked again at the paper: a five page case series of 11 boys and one girl, aged between 3 and 9 years. Nine children, it said, had diagnoses of “regressive” autism, and all but one were reported with “non-specific colitis.” The “new syndrome” brought these together, linking brain and bowel diseases. His son was the penultimate case.
Running his finger across the paper’s tables, over coffee in London, Mr 11 seemed reassured by his anonymised son’s age and other details. But then he pointed at table 2—headed “neuropsychiatric diagnosis”—and for a second time objected.
“That’s not true.”
Child 11 was among the eight whose parents apparently blamed MMR. The interval between his vaccination and the first “behavioural symptom” was reported as 1 week. This symptom was said to have appeared at age 15 months. But his father, whom I had tracked down, said this was wrong.
“From the information you provided me on our son, who I was shocked to hear had been included in their published study,” he wrote to me, after we met again in California, “the data clearly appeared to be distorted.”
He backed his concerns with medical records, including a Royal Free discharge summary.5 Although the family lived 5000 miles from the hospital, in February 1997 the boy (then aged 5) had been flown to London and admitted for Wakefield’s project, the undisclosed goal of which was to help sue the vaccine’s manufacturers.6
Wakefield’s “syndrome”
Unknown to Mr 11, Wakefield was working on a lawsuit,7 for which he sought a bowel-brain “syndrome” as its centrepiece. Claiming an undisclosed £150 (€180, $230) an hour through a Norfolk solicitor named Richard Barr, he had been confidentially 8 put on the payroll two years before the paper was published, eventually grossing him £435 643, plus expenses.9
Curiously, however, Wakefield had already identified such a syndrome before the project which would reputedly discover it. “Children with enteritis/disintegrative disorder [an expression he used for bowel inflammation and regressive autism10] form part of a new syndrome,” he and Barr explained in a confidential grant application to the UK government’s Legal Aid Board11 before any of the children were investigated.12 “Nonetheless the evidence is undeniably in favour of a specific vaccine induced pathology.”
The two men also aimed to show a sudden-onset “temporal association”—strong evidence in product liability. “Dr Wakefield feels that if we can show a clear time link between the vaccination and onset of symptoms,” Barr told the legal board, “we should be able to dispose of the suggestion that it’s simply a chance encounter.”13
But child 11’s case must have proved a disappointment. Records show his behavioural symptoms started too soon. “His developmental milestones were normal until 13 months of age,” notes the discharge summary. “In the period 13-18 months he developed slow speech patterns and repetitive hand movements. Over this period his parents remarked on his slow gradual deterioration.”
That put the first symptom two months earlier than reported in the Lancet, and a month before the boy received the MMR vaccination. And this was not the only anomaly to catch the father’s eye. What the paper reported as a “behavioural symptom” was noted in the records as a chest infection.
This is significant. Wakefield states,
“Nonetheless the evidence is undeniably in favour of a specific vaccine induced pathology.”
(Wakefield A. Introduction to the rationale, aims and potential therapeutic implications of the investigation of children with Disintegrative disorder (regressive autism; Heller’s disease and intestinal symptomatology.” (Document issued by Wakefield and mailed to doctors and parents who approached the Royal Free , dated 3 February 1997.))
Pixel is cherry picking the wording of the retracted paper, But its very very clear Wakefield was of the view
the evidence is undeniably in favour of a specific vaccine induced pathology.
That's bad science as the review board scathingly agreed. You take the evidence examine it and then form a hypothesis.
He started with the hypothesis and then had to shave the square peg to fit that round hole. Massaging the data and even misrepresenting it in order to support that hypothesis.
And he did it not to advance medical science, not for the kids. He did it for the money.
And the icing on that cake is the 4 bucks Pixel says we have to pay to see the film. If it was such a vital truth surely it would be up on YT for free.
It is and always has been about the money.
The paper remains retracted, and Wakefield remains struck off for his fraud.
The now retracted paper couldn't state we have found undeniable evidence of a connection.....
Because there is none as proper and larger studies have confirmed.
Study 's that involved not a dozen children, but thousands. Double blinds, placebos and twins.
Its purpose was to give the lawyers something they could use to introduce "reasonable doubt" to their lawsuits. In civil matters that's all you need. Not beyond a shadow of a doubt proof. which Wakefield could never have done because there is no link. Instead the paper hinted at a link we know from an earlier paper he published he truly believed was real.
You have to look at the larger context to see the fraud that was perpetrated and its motives.
Thankfully the review board did just this and now hes discredited.
Steven Miles, a professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Minnesota, calls Andrew Wakefield a researcher with a
track record of fraud.
"He's just not trustworthy," Miles said. "And it does not surprise me that he would seek out a population which is unsophisticated and desperate."
Unsophisticated is the kindest way of describing Pixels stance. If the Paracast were a village.....