“The key false claim was that the vaccine for measles caused an increase in autism. This claim was made in 1998 by a doctor writing in a distinguished British medical journal, so it is understandable that many parents took it seriously, and did not want to run the risk of having their child become autistic.”
Investigations by Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer reported that Andrew Wakefield, the author of the original research paper, had multiple undeclared conflicts of interest,[2][3] had manipulated evidence,[4] and had broken other ethical codes. The Lancet paper was partially retracted in 2004, and fully retracted in 2010, when The Lancet’s editor-in-chief Richard Horton described it as “utterly false” and said that the journal had been “deceived.”[5] Wakefield was found guilty by the General Medical Council of serious professional misconduct in May 2010 and was struck off the Medical Register, meaning he could no longer practice as a doctor in the UK.[6] In 2011, Deer provided further information on Wakefield’s improper research practices to the British medical journal, BMJ, which in a signed editorial described the original paper as fraudulent.[7][8] The scientific consensus is that no evidence links the MMR vaccine to the development of autism, and that this vaccine’s benefits greatly outweigh its risks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy
“Fortunately, others took the claim seriously in a very different sense. They did massive studies involving half a million children in Denmark and 2 million children in Sweden.”
It’s called “mopping up” and is one of the reasons the “settled science” paradigm is hard to break. In our time of apathy + stupidity + drugged up + spiritual illiteracy + political manipulation through media and education paradigms are probably unassailable. I know three kids who were fine before vaccinations and became autistic after. That tells me a lot more than this socially motivated/situated research. Before anyone tries to tell me how stupid and unscientific I am, read Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Hey, giving birth the natural way 100 years ago meant a very high mortality rate for both mother and child. But it was the “natural” thing to do.
Some parents to be are still choosing natural child birth and sometimes the results are tragic.
It was junk science that the doctor based his “study” on. As a result, millions of kids are at risk.
If the MSM telling me to take. I will not.
The AMA (in 2012) was floating around the idea of COMPULSORY PARTICIPATION IN VACCINE TRIALS. This is part of the bigger picture that some are worried about. Your own freedom in healthcare. (America Medical Association, Journal of Ethics)
“...Compulsory involvement in vaccine studies is one alternative solution that is not as outlandish as it might seem on first consideration...” (need for “healthy” individuals to get vaccinated in trials)
http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/2012/01/pfor1-1201.html
Look deeper: Dr. Andrew Wakefield was not the fraud... it was the phony “investigative journalist” Brian Deer who was exposed & has ties to the vaccine industry who was the fraud.
Sowell’s right.
From a historical perspective (written almost 100 years ago and dedicated to Woodrow Wilson)
Horrors of Vaccination Exposed and Illustrated (free to read)
https://archive.org/details/39002086340891.med.yale.edu