http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/full-statement-by-dr-andrew-wakefield-the-government-has-tried-to-cover-up-putting-price-before-childrens-health-8570596.html

Quite why the Independant should see fit to allow Wakefield to peddle this nonsense without challenge is beyond me. Did they not learn anything about media culpability the first time round?

no

the media are generally untrustworthy and full of nonsense

why anyone takes any notice of any of them is beyond me

The comments on that are also depressing…

Why is the term “Dr” still being used about this man? He neither has a PhD of is a practising medic.AFAIK

Because you don’t need to have a PHD or practice medicine to be called a Dr?

Oh?

I can’t believe that the Independent gave this jerk publicity. He’s directly responsible for deaths due to the original MMR scare.

GMC registered or PhD to be called Dr? Yes. He’s been stuck off.

This reminds me of the Ben Goldacre Bad Science quote. Gillian McKenna or to give her, her full title, Gillian McKenna.

I don’t think Dr is a protected term. I think nurse is though.

I am a Dr of love. … anyone needs a prescription page me

Goldacre has been giving the indies health editor some stick on twitter.

The beeb have given this coverage as well – it’s beyond reason and belief. The really sad thing is, is that it appears that of all papers…The Daily Heil has decided not to run this story.

The man needs to go to prison IMO, I’d be very very close to kicking the **** out of wakefield if I met him in a pub.

Bwaarp +1

The conclusions by the GMC and in the BMJ and Deer’s reporting have shown what a stain on humanity this man is. Every comment he makes should be accompanied by en editorial reminding everybody what a fraudster he is.

The **** David Icke style whack jobs are really coming out of the woodwork in the comments sections of those papers.

It was utterly irresponsible to print those articles even if they do poorly attempt to paint Wakefield in a bad light.

We need to get tough on these people, if your child is unvacinated then they shouldn’t be allowed in school whether they are state or privately educated. If you want to go hippy, go full hippy and home educate them.

Anyone who doesn’t get their child vaccinated for any reason other than medical grounds should also pay an increased tax rate to cover the costs of dealing with lowered or non-existent herd immunity and the costs of compensating those people who are infected by measles etc because they can’t have the jab on health grounds.

The same **** left wing middle class hippies who are usually the types to not have their children vaccinated tend like to bang on about how we all live in this world together. Well, suck it up….your individual liberties shouldn’t extend to infecting the rest of us.

The man needs to go to prison IMO

Why should the buck stop with the patsy who took the money to fake test result. He was being paid pretty handsomely to create false data to sway a court case. But the lawyers who paid him have left him swinging and somehow seem to be beyond scrutiny themselves.

He could have made that article an awful lot shorter and more accurate:

In the wake of further media distortion, misrepresentation, and ignorance in relation to the measles outbreak in Wales, it is important to clarify some key facts. It’s all my fault

Fixed that for him

The beeb have given this coverage as well

Well to be fair, they only appear to have mentioned he’s published a statement on his dodgy website, not actually printed his ramblings.

The same **** left wing middle class hippies who are usually the types to not have their children vaccinated tend like to bang on about how we all live in this world together. Well, suck it up….your individual liberties shouldn’t extend to infecting the rest of us.

You seem to have missed the important point, it’s Swansea and the Valleys affected by the recent outbeak. Middle class doesn’t make it that far up the M4. It’s not educated people making informed decisions, it’s people who trust the media and people with “Dr” in their name implicitly.

It’s not educated people making informed decisions, it’s people who trust the media and people with “Dr” in their name implicitly.

As an aside, recent research in New South Wakes suggests there is some kind of parent income/immunisation bell curve at work, where lowest rates of MMR take up are in the poorest and richest suburbs: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/lower-vaccine-rates-put-wealthy-areas-at-risk-of-disease-20130410-2hlt5.html

We need to get tough on these people, if your child is unvacinated then they shouldn’t be allowed in school whether they are state or privately educated. If you want to go hippy, go full hippy and home educate them.

😯
wow! So you think parents should be forced by the state to have their children vaccinated?

wow! So you think parents should be forced by the state to have their children vaccinated?

So you think children who cannot be vaccinated for various medical reasons should be forced to be placed at risk by those who have not had them.

You are denying them their choice to go to school in a healthy environment, the burden should instead fall on those who CHOOSE not to vaccinate your children. It’s fine to make the choice, just find another way of educating your tykes. Maybe send them to a hippy brainwashing co-operative school…. perhaps a Steiner school?

So you think children who cannot be vaccinated for various medical reasons should be forced to be placed at risk by those who have not had them.

So you think that parents hold responsibilities for other peoples children as well as their own.

So you think that parents hold responsibilities for other peoples children as well as their own.

Yes, we live in a society don’t we?

If we didn’t and we weren’t bound to responsibility to society, I could just go round to your house and enact my version of rampant individualism with a shotgun to protect my children.

Yes, we live in a society don’t we?

Otherwise I could just go round to your house and enact my version of rampant individualism with a shotgun to protect my children.

Yes we live in a society, one that allows free will and individualism.
Of course shooting me would be a criminal act, not vaccinating children is not a criminal act.
Would you prefer that it was?

restless – Member

So you think that parents hold responsibilities for other peoples children as well as their own.

I think that people hold responsibility for the results of their own actions. You’re not talking about “holding responsibility”, you’re talking about “not putting at risk”.

Of course shooting me would be a criminal act, not vaccinating children is not a criminal act.
Would you prefer that it was?

Yup.

In fact I have political contacts within parliament anyway, so when this terms over I’ll be seeing if I can do some lobbying.

wow! So you think parents should be forced by the state to have their children vaccinated?

Yes. The same way we “force” parents to educate their children, or care for their health.

Of course shooting me would be a criminal act, not vaccinating children is not a criminal act.
Would you prefer that it was?

Yup.

Such an emotive subject often gives polarised responses.
Yours is a fine example.

Such an emotive subject often gives polarised responses.
Yours is a fine example.

It’s a yes/no question, it’s hard not to be “polarised”.

Personally I hope people like you restless are one day prosecuted in the same way parents are who allow their children to die through exposure to elements etc.

Finally, the authors of articles that say anything that is not backed up by science in reputable journals in a fashion that attempts to deny current scientific consensus in regards to something in which peoples lives are held in the balance should be prosecuted with legislation akin to the ones Germany has for Holocaust Denial.

**** had enough of it, there’s a time and place for free speech – placing others at risk with groundless rumours is not it.

Personally I hope people like you restless are one day prosecuted in the same way parents are who allow their children to die through exposure to elements etc.

That is very harsh.
Prosecuted for what exactly?
For questioning peoples’ views on vaccination!

Personally I hope people like you restless are one day prosecuted in the same way parents are who allow their children to die through exposure to elements etc.

I think you are possibly reading more than Restless is writing

For questioning peoples’ views on vaccination!

No, for child abuse where it can be proven.

But yes, I’d also be partial to some sort of German “Holocaust Denial” style law.

Wakefield and Melanie Phillips et al should all be banged up, as should those who pedal groundless blogs on the matter. The plebs need putting in their places.

it’s people who trust the media and people with “Dr” in their name implicitly.

round our way, the first time round, it was just folk who didn’t trust authority full stop.. they were many and they came from all walks of life..

there was a lot of that in the 90s

I’ve just been trying to unravel the alleged motive behind the original fraud this evening but it all seems rather unclear, other than the doctor fella was being paid some money by some lawyers..

can anyone give a summary of what went on..?

Mumps, measles and rubella – that’s what MMR stands for isn’t it? And rubella is measles when you get it as an adult – is that right?

I had mumps and measles as a child. And chickenpox. In fact, we used to have measles parties and chickenpox parties too – to make sure we got the diseases.

I don’t get why you should jab children against these things, it was quite routine when I was a child.

I’m taking the dogs out now, so I’ll read the answer to my question in an hour when I get back.

bwaarp in ‘being just as hysterical as the Daily Mail’ shocker.

Because the serious complication rates of any of those diseases are much muuuuuuuch higher than that of the jab.

If there was no overall health benefit to them, they would never be recommended. Eg the same reason the smallpox vaccine is no longer distributed, the risks outweigh the benefits as the disease doesn’t exist in the UK outside of *possibly* Porton Down.

P.S. Rubella and Measles are two different diseases.

Because the serious complication rates of any of those diseases are much muuuuuuuch higher than that of the jab.

If there was no overall health benefit to them, they would never be recommended. Eg the same reason the smallpox vaccine is no longer distributed, the risks outweigh the benefits as the disease doesn’t exist in the UK outside of Porton Down.

The way that people believe without question what they are told is what worries me.
How do you know vaccines are safe? Why does the government have a vaccine damage payment fund if there is no risk?

For questioning peoples’ views on vaccination!

No, for child endangerment where it can be proven

That would be child endangerment how?
By assuming I have unvaccinated children? Or by questioning your opinions.

The way that people believe without question what they are told is what worries me.
How do you know vaccines are safe? Why does the government have a vaccine damage payment fund if there is no risk?

They have risks, all drugs and medical procedures have risks. The fact that some governments have vaccine payment funds simply demonstrates that those governments care about the individuals who do get side effects.

I know the vaccines are safer than the diseases because hundreds of doctors and scientists around the world independent of the original studies performed by the pharmaceutical companies… carry out their own studies. These are published to major/minor journals or left unpublished but often accessible to researchers who can then perform a meta-analysis which for lay men effectively finds the average outcome of all the studies.

I don’t get why you should jab children against these things, it was quite routine when I was a child

as were blindness, severe brain damage and death, they were all routine as well. When you think back to those old Giles cartoons of hospitals the cast of characters were alway the elderly, someone with their arm or leg in plaster (or their toe stuck in a tap) and…. a child with spots and a thermometer. Measles is typically mild but commonly severe enough to hopitalise children and the long term damage can be gruesome. Severe and deadly effects of the illness are about 1 in 1000 which is a horribly high level risk for a contagious disease. In the scale of outbreak in south wales a death, severe disablement or persistent vegetive state is statistically due.

I don’t think you can go so far as to legal compulsion to vaccinate, but there is a compulsion for the people who inform your choices to inform them fully and honestly. Clear, honest, fair information about the risk of immunisation and the risks of not immunising, but that has been swamped in a media where its difficult to pick out the nuggets of fact in a garbage heap of opinion and PR.