Current Events

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This has been a long time coming (cf. ID Topic Suggestions thread), and for that I apologise. With Christmas (which = ridiculous amount of time spent at work) and summer, I've spent very little time on the Internet, and when I am, it's usually via my iPod.

This thread was suggested by DragonHeart, if my memory serves me correctly. It is a place to post a link to a recent news item, and write a stream of consciousness about it. Post any news event you wish, and just state your thoughts on it. It can be something you find funny, confusing, disgusting, enraging, interesting... and so on.

You post without the expectation of anyone replying to your thoughts, but anyone is free to pick up the same news item and let their views be heard.

Normal forum rules apply, and just use a bit of common sense about the news items you link here, and we'll all be happy.

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I have the luxury of going first. I am going to look at the latest developments around the research of Andrew Wakefield, who carried out a 1998 study in which he claimed there was a link between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism and intestinal conditions.

British Medical Journal (BMJ) said on Wednesday that in a 1998 paper by Dr. Andrew Wakefield and colleagues committed an "elaborate fraud" by faking data linking the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) shot to autism.

Andrew Wakefield said that the BMJ report was a smear campaign by powerful pharmaceutical companies, in an interview late on Wednesday with CNN.

"It's a ruthless pragmatic attempt to crush any investigation into valid vaccine safety concerns," Wakefield said.

He said that pharmaceutical companies were undertaking the campaign because "they are very, very concerned about the adverse reactions to vaccines that are occurring in children."

The 1998 study convinced thousands of parents that vaccines are dangerous and led them to skip the doses. Immunisation rates have never climbed back to their rate before Wakefield's research.

It is blamed for ongoing outbreaks of measles and mumps.

The conclusions of the paper by Wakefield and his colleagues was renounced by 10 of its 13 authors and later retracted by the medical journal Lancet, where it was originally published.

I feel strongly on this issue, and support Wakefield, despite whatever we are being told by governments, other researchers, and pharmaceutical companies. I say this because my own brother was developing normally until he was 18 months of age, when he received MMR, and was then diagnosed with autism. Fast forward fourteen more years, and he has a intestinal condition that meant he and my parents saw in the new year, and its first week, in the hospital.

I read the Plunket book regarding my brother's development (I'm not sure what these are called elsewhere -- the little books in which parents keep notes of doctor's check-ups of their infant children, and their immunisations and so on). Every check-up my brother had until he had his MMR vaccine concluded by saying that he was advancing at or above the expected rate. He was engaged with people, he was learning to talk.

When he got the MMR vaccine, he changed literally overnight. He was able to tell my parents and the doctor "I sick", and we took him to hospital. That would be the last thing he ever said, and his mental age has remained the same ever since. He is now 16, unable to talk (only able to make sounds), and lacking understanding of everything that is not within his routine.

Officially, he is diagnosed with autism and severe intellectual disability, and has had a raft of other health conditions, the most severe being his intestinal condition that basically renders him unable to digest independently (there are interventions we perform on him, but none are completely satisfactory, and he can be expected to go into hospital every six months in a lot of pain).

His reaction to MMR is incredibly rare -- we understand that. It is so so unlikely to happen to anybody else, that we do NOT recommend to other people to avoid the MMR vaccine. The risks posed by the various diseases it protects from far outweigh the risk from reaction.

However for there to still be a complete denial of any link between MMR and autism is a slap in the face of my brother, and my family. It is a fraud. As far as I can understand, there are several motives for hiding and denying the link.

First, the government does not want people rejecting the MMR vaccine. I understand this desire in the interests of public health, and is why I will still be definitely be immunising my future children.

Second, the pharmaceutical companies have a lot to lose from people avoiding MMR. I wouldn't be surprised to hear of conflicts of interest in the research that concludes in favour of MMR.

The problem with the denial in relationship is that it precludes honest research into the causes of the reaction. Is it genetic? If so, will my own children be likely to react to MMR? I need this information, so I can make an informed decision about immunisation -- but as long as I am cast as a crazy man, I will never find out. I just seek honesty.

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This thread could be GC. There is no reason why you can't just say ten words on anything you fancy -- it's not an essay, and it's not a competition. Just a fountain of thought. I placed it in ID as it came about as an ID suggestion.

That said: have fun.