Central to the latest claims of journalist Brian Deer published in the British Medical Journal 6th January is the allegation that Dr Wakefield “altered numerous facts about the patients’ medical histories in order to support his claim to have identified a new syndrome.“
What Deer and the BMJ fail to point out is that not only did Wakefield not produce the results, which were the work of a team of 12 other specialists at the Royal Free Hospital, London, England but that:-
It was not possible for Wakefield or anyone else to falsify the prior clinical records of the children because no one at the Royal Free Hospital London had them nor is it normal practice for them to have had them. So there could be no fraud over “altering” those histories. It just was not possible.
And do vaccines cause autistic conditions? If you read nothing else we strongly recommend you read this: PDF Download – Text of May 5th 2008 email from US HRSA to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News]. In it the US Health Resources Services Administration [HRSA] state to CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson
We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.”
Despite all the lies and deceit by health official worldwide, the question “do vaccines cause autism” was answered after the Hannah Poling story broke in the USA in February 2008 [see CHS article here]. Hannah developed an autistic condition after 9 vaccines administered the same day. Under the media spotlight numerous US health officials and agencies conceded on broadcast US nationwide TV news from CBS and CNN. Full details with links to the original sources can be found in this CHS article: Vaccination Causes Autism – Say US Government & Merck’s Director of Vaccines. [Blue Text added 10 April 2011]
Deer’s claims focus on what he claims to be discrepancies between:
- clinical medical histories taken at the Royal Free Hospital and
- the NHS/General Practitioner and other records of the child patients concerned taken over some years by various different family doctors and other child health professionals (eg. health visitors).
Deer and BMJ fail to make clear that:
- as is common and normal practice those records were not provided to the Royal Free Team
- it is normal practice to take a medical history afresh – with only the referral letter from a patient’s family doctor setting out relevant prior clinical history.
- a child’s history is taken from accounts given by the parents supported by the history and details provided by the child’s doctor and sometimes specialists in other hospitals
- where a history is taken from a parent it common for that parent to be unaware of what a GP may have entered [and probably more importantly, failed to enter] in prior NHS & in other child records and medical notes
- sometimes records and notes [which can be created over years by numerous individuals] may not be reliable – hence the need to take a clinical history afresh
- for most of the nine children diagnosed with autism, and in the case of developmental regression, the diagnoses and records of developmental regression had been made long before the children were referred to the Royal Free
- the Royal Free diagnoses were otherwise made independently and afresh by specialists in their fields
Over and above all this, as no parent was called by the GMC prosecutor in the GMC hearings [bar the one who thought the evidence was given for the Defendants’ benefit], there has been no opportunity for the parents to answer Mr Deer’s allegations or to challenge what he says nor has there been any proper full examination of these cherry-picked allegations, nor any opportunity for any claims now being made to be subject to cross-examination and independent investigation.
Additionally, one of the witnesses in the GMC proceedings against Dr Wakefield writing to the British Medical Journal confirmed the validity of the histopathology on which the paper was based and illustrated how Sunday Times journalist Brian Deer had misrepresented her evidence. Dr Susan E Davies, Consultant Histopathologist, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge stated in the British Medical Journal regarding a BMJ article by Brian Deer that:
There is some misrepresentation …. and lack of understanding of the process in studies involving histopathology.” and that there were significant findings “While a clinical gastroenterologist might consider caecal active inflammation with incipient crypt abscess formation to be normal in children (1), this is a significant finding to be recorded by pathologists“ “Caution in assessing histopathological opinions.” BMJ Rapid Responses 30 April 2010.
The other significant flaw in these lies is that if the paper were a fraud, how is it that the findings are now being accepted by the US Government and mainstream medicine.
Nowhere is this made clearer than in the US National Autism Association’s News Release 5th January exclusively to the UK media [full text & full references pasted below]:-
In summary what NAA state in their UK news release is that if the 1998 Lancet paper’s results were faked how is it that now Dr Wakefield’s work is being proven right:-
- US Government health officials have admitted vaccines [and not just the MMR vaccine] cause autistic conditions;
- the US Federal Court has ordered substantial compensation for children whose autistic conditions were caused by vaccines;
- papers published independently in mainstream leading medical journals confirm, just as Dr Wakefield found in 1998, that autistic children suffer serious bowel disease when their non autistic contemporaries do not.
See also [posted 7 Jan]:
CNN Interview – Andrew Wakefield Replies to Autism Fraud Allegations
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NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – REBUTTAL
January 5th 2011 – Nixa, Missouri USA/ British Medical Journal claims to be published Friday 6th January 2011 that the suggestion of a possible link between vaccines, bowel conditions and autistic conditions in children was “an elaborate fraud” are directly contradicted by:-
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public statements by officials of US Federal Agencies made on US national news broadcast television that vaccines in general [ie not just the MMR vaccine] can cause autistic conditions;
- by a line of recent mainstream research papers showing that
- instead of being rare as claimed by government health officials autistic children are more likely to have mitochondrial dysfunctions which can lead to autistic conditions following vaccination
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and by the latest medical research [including Jan 2010 Pediatrics] and by a substantial body of prior peer reviewed papers showing that autistic children have substantially higher rates of bowel disease than other children
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this published medical evidence confirms the early report in The Lancet medical journal in 1998 by a 13 strong team of medical experts from the internationally renowned Royal Free Hospital London.
-
- by three US Federal court decisions Poling, Zeller and Banks that vaccines have been proven to have caused autistic conditions:-
- [NB These are in addition to 1322 cases of serious brain injuries and medical conditions caused by vaccines which the US HRSA admits compensating. It is troubling that children susceptible to serious vaccine injury are not being screened out of the vaccine programmes and nothing is being done to save such children.]
Wendy Fournier of the US National Autism Association said:
Despite mounting scientific evidence worldwide confirming the presence of serious bowel disease in some children diagnosed with autism and evidence of a causal association with vaccines, health officials and medical professionals internationally continue to spin, deny and suppress the evidence,” said NAA president Wendy Fournier. ”This latest attack by the UK medical profession through a journalist, who apparently has no source of income besides stories about Andrew Wakefield, is a continuing denial and failure to investigate either the contrary evidence that exists or the clinical histories of millions of children currently diagnosed with autism worldwide.”
One in 64 British children and one in 110 children in the US are now diagnosed with autism. ”Increasing rates of autism in children are out of control,” commented Ms. Fournier. ”Despite this pandemic, health officials and medical professionals continue to bury their heads in the sand while children and families suffer. The link between vaccines and the development of autism in susceptible individuals is not going away, because the children are not going away.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
Now follow
- Public Statements By US Agencies And Officials confirming autistic conditions are caused by vaccines
- Details of US Federal Court cases finding autistic conditions caused by vaccines
- research confirming the 1998 Lancet paper early study highlighting a link between autistic conditions and serious bowel conditions was correct
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Public Statements By US Agencies & Officials:-
Now, we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids. So if a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines. And if you’re predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism. “
HOUSE CALL WITH DR. SANJAY GUPTA – Unraveling the Mystery of Autism; Talking With the CDC Director; Stories of Children with Autism; Aging with Autism – Aired March 29, 2008 – 08:30
A new paper in Journal of American Medical Association confirms [contrary to US health officials claims] that mitochondrial dysfunction is not rare but common in children like 9 year old US girl Hannah Poling. The new paper confirms these children:
were more likely to have mitochondrial dysfunction, mtDNA overreplication, and mtDNA deletions than typically developing children.“
Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Autism JAMA. 2010;304(21):2389-2396. doi: 10.1001/jama.2010.1706
That this can occur was also confirmed in a peer reviewed medical paper about Hannah Poling’s condition in the Journal of Child Neurology which states:-
Young children who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time.
Developmental Regression and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in a Child With Autism (Journal of Journal of Child Neurology / Volume 21, Number 2, February 2006)
It was conceded by US officials that Hannah Poling had a mitochondrial dysfunction.
2) That Autistic conditions can result from vaccination was confirmed by the US Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News in relation to 1322 cases of vaccine injury compensation settled out of court by the US Government in unpublished settlements [see text of email exchanges between US HRSA and Attkisson – attached]:-
We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.”
Vaccine Case: An Exception Or A Precedent? – First Family To Have Autism-Related Case “Conceded” Is Just One Of Thousands – CBS News By Sharyl Attkisson WASHINGTON, March 6, 2008
It should be noted that the US Government admits to compensating 1322 children who developed very serious medical conditions following brain damage caused by vaccines.
3) Dr Bernadine Healy a former Director of the US National Institutes of Health, responsible for US$ 30.5 billion annual budget expenditure on health research stated to CBS news:-
I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as irrational,” Healy said.
“But public health officials have been saying they know, they’ve been implying to the public there’s enough evidence and they know it’s not causal,” Attkisson said.
“I think you can’t say that,” Healy said. “You can’t say that.”
CBS News Exclusive: Leading Dr.: Vaccines-Autism Worth Study Former Head Of NIH Says Government Too Quick To Dismiss Possible Link – WASHINGTON, May 12, 2008
Dr Healy is is a Harvard and Johns Hopkins educated physician, cardiologist and former head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She has been a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins, professor and dean of the College of Medicine and Public Health at the Ohio State University, and served as president of the American Red Cross.
4) And the large increases in autistic conditions cannot be being caused by genetics was confirmed by Dr Francis Collins the current 16th Director of the US$ 30.5 billion annual budget US National Institutes of Health and a leading medical doctor and geneticist who led the Human Genome Project.
When Director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute Collins confirmed in public to the US House of Representatives in May 2006 that recent increases in chronic diseases like diabetes, childhood asthma, obesity and autism must have an environmental [external] cause and cannot be purely genetically [internally] caused conditions:
Recent increases in chronic diseases like diabetes, childhood asthma, obesity or autism cannot be due to major shifts in the human gene pool as those changes take much more time to occur. They must be due to changes in the environment, including diet and physical activity, which may produce disease in genetically predisposed persons. Therefore, GEI will also invest in innovative new technologies/sensors to measure environmental toxins, dietary intake and physical activity, and using new tools of genomics, proteomics, and understanding metabolism rates to determine an individual’s biological response to those influences.“
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.,
Evidence to US House of Representatives Committee May 2006
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US Federal Court Cases
The US Federal Court has found in three cases made public that vaccines can cause autistic conditions in children. Brief summaries appear below and .pdfs of the court decisions are attached.
Summaries:-
1) Hannah Poling – The US Department of Health and Human Services settled the US Federal Court claims of this 9 year old girl in a sealed [secret] settlement in 2008. The DHHS experts conceded the case without a hearing claiming her mitochondrial dysfunction was “rare”. Recent research shows that mitochondrial dysfunction is not rare but common in autistic children compared to non autistic children.
Hannah Poling developed an autistic condition after being administered 9 vaccines in one day. She has recently been awarded US$ 20 million over her lifetime. Her father Jon is a medical doctor at Johns Hopkins University USA and her mother is a former nurse:-
Court Awards Over $20 Million for Vaccine-Caused Autism – PR Newswire (press release) – ?Sep 15, 2010?
Family to Receive $1.5M+ in First-Ever Vaccine-Autism Court Award – CBS News September 9, 2010
Settlement reached in autism-vaccine case – September 10, 2010 By Carrie Teegardin – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
2) Bailey Banks:-
Autistic conditions can result from acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) following MMR vaccination as held by the US Federal Court in the case of Bailey Banks. British Health Minister misled the English Parliament when she claimed in a written Parliamentary answer that Bailey Banks did not have an autistic condition.
Bailey Banks developed PDD-NOS – an autistic condition following from his MMR vaccination. Bailey Bank’s diagnosis follows US terminology under DSM IV for what is called in the rest of the world “Autistic Spectrum Disorder” under the International Classification of Disease. [Banks v. HHS (Case 02-0738V, 2007 U.S. Claims LEXIS 254, July 20, 2007)].
In his conclusion, US Federal Court Special Master Abell ruled that Petitioners had proven that the MMR had directly caused a brain inflammation illness called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) which, in turn, had caused the autism spectrum disorder PDD-NOS in the child:
The Court found that Bailey’s ADEM was both caused-in-fact and proximately caused by his vaccination. It is well-understood that the vaccination at issue can cause ADEM, and the Court found, based upon a full reading and hearing of the pertinent facts in this case, that it did actually cause the ADEM. Furthermore, Bailey’s ADEM was severe enough to cause lasting, residual damage, and retarded his developmental progress, which fits under the generalized heading of Pervasive Developmental Delay, or PDD [ED NOTE: an autism spectrum disorder]. The Court found that Bailey would not have suffered this delay but for the administration of the MMR vaccine, and that this chain of causation was… a proximate sequence of cause and effect leading inexorably from vaccination to Pervasive Developmental Delay.
[Banks v. HHS (Case 02-0738V, 2007 U.S. Claims LEXIS 254, July 20, 2007)].
But here is what British Health Minister Dawn Primarolo stated in the English Parliament:-
Ms Primarolo claimed Bailey Banks whose autistic condition was caused by vaccines and won his case in the US Federal Court on that basis was not diagnosed with autism. Minister Primarolo is also reported to have been sending out the same information in written replies to enquiries from British MPs made on behalf of constituents.
The written answer: MMR Vaccine appears in Hansard, the official record of proceedings in the English Parliament of 18 Mar 2009 : Column 1229W. The full text of the exchange from Hansard:
MMR Vaccine
Mark Pritchard:To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make an assessment of the implications of the decision in the US case of Bailey Banks v. The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for his Department’s policy on the MMR vaccine. [263933]
Dawn Primarolo:In 2007 the United States Court of Federal Claims made a ruling in favour of compensation to the father of Bailey Banks for his non-autistic developmental delay as a result of Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (ADEM) following receipt of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. ADEM is an extremely rare condition that has been reported after rabies, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, smallpox, MMR, Japanese B encephalitis, pertussis, influenza and hepatitis B vaccines. The Bailey Banks case has no implications for MMR vaccine policy.
3) Ben Zeller
In the US Federal Court case of Ben Zeller, this boy was proven to have suffered a developmental delay caused by vaccines the judgement records that the defendant US Department of Health and Human Services had no alternative explanation beyond:-
Unconfirmed speculation by a few treating doctors, as with Dr. Wiznitzer‘s hypothesization‘http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/ABELL.ZELLER073008.pdf
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Research confirming
- that Hannah Poling’s mitochondrial dysfunction which can result in autistic conditions following vaccination is not rare but common in autistic children
- the 1998 Lancet paper early study highlighting a link between autistic conditions and serious bowel conditions was correct
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1) Mitochondrial Dysfunction Not Rare
A – New Paper 1st December 2010 – Journal of American Medical Association:-
Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Autism JAMA. 2010;304(21):2389-2396. doi: 10.1001/jama.2010.1706
This confirms [contrary to US health officials claims] that mitochondrial dysfunction is not rare but common in children like 9 year old US girl Hannah Poling. The new paper confirms these children:
“were more likely to have mitochondrial dysfunction, mtDNA overreplication, and mtDNA deletions than typically developing children.“
This paper was reported by Reuters –
Cells’ ‘power plants’ damaged in some autistic kids – By Frederik Joelving NEW YORK | Tue Nov 30, 2010 5:15pm EST
B – Journal of Neuroinflammation. 2010 Nov 17;7:80. – Mitochondrial DNA and anti-mitochondrial antibodies in serum of autistic children.
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by difficulties in communication, cognitive and learning deficits, as well as stereotypic behaviors. For the majority of cases there are no reliable biomarkers or distinct pathogenesis. However, increasing evidence indicates ASD may be associated with some immune dysregulation, and may have a neuroimmune component. We recently showed that the peptide neurotensin (NT) is increased in autistic children. We now show that NT induces release of extracellular mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that could act as “autoimmune” trigger. We further show that serum from young autistic patients contains mtDNA (n = 20; cytochrome B, p = 0.0002 and 7S, p = 0.006), and anti-mitochondrial antibody Type 2 (n = 14; p = 0.001) as compared to normally developing, unrelated controls (n = 12). Extracellular blood mtDNA and other components may characterize an autistic endophenotype and may contribute to its pathogenesis by activating autoimmune responses.
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2) Bowel Illness Far More Common In Autistic Children
PUBLISHED 4TH JANUARY 2010 – Pediatrics – Medical Consensus Report –
PEDIATRICS Vol. 125 Supplement January 2010, pp. S1-S18 (doi:10.1542/peds.2009-1878C)
Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Disorders in Individuals With ASDs: A Consensus Report“Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are common and clinically heterogeneousneurodevelopmental disorders. Gastrointestinal disorders andassociated symptoms are commonly reported in individuals withASDs, but key issues such as the prevalence and best treatmentof these conditions are incompletely understood. A central difficultyin recognizing and characterizing gastrointestinal dysfunctionwith ASDs is the communication difficulties experienced by manyaffected individuals. A multidisciplinary panel reviewed themedical literature with the aim of generating evidence-basedrecommendations for diagnostic evaluation and management ofgastrointestinal problems in this patient population.”
Pediatrics. 2009 Mar;123(3):1018-24. Distinct genetic risk based on association of MET in families with co-occurring autism and gastrointestinal conditions.
In addition to the core behavioral symptoms of autism spectrum disorder, many patients present with complex medical conditions including gastrointestinal dysfunction. ….. On the basis of these functions, we hypothesized that association of the autism spectrum disorder-associated MET promoter variant may be enriched in a subset of individuals with co-occurring autism spectrum disorder and gastrointestinal conditions.”
“RESULTS: In the entire 214-family sample, the MET rs1858830 C allele was associated with both autism spectrum disorder and gastrointestinal conditions.”
FROM IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON:- J Proteome Res. 2010 Jun 4;9(6):2996-3004. Urinary metabolic phenotyping differentiates children with autism from their unaffected siblings and age-matched controls.
These biochemical changes are consistent with some of the known abnormalities of gut microbiota found in autistic individuals and the associated gastrointestinal dysfunction and may be of value in monitoring the success of therapeutic interventions.”
Filed under: Vaccine Damage | Tagged: BMJ, Brian Deer, British Medical Journal, Fiona Godlee | 9 Comments »
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