The Wakefield study has been ruled a fraud

[conuly]

Can't you just hear the amazement and surprise as I type?

Comments

[dragonwolf]

Didn't the BMJ rule that, like, ten years ago? Too bad it doesn't matter to those that are dead set on believing that "study".

[dragonwolf]

Also, do you have any entries about that whole fiasco? If so, could you either give me a date range or a link to it/them? I'd love to see your thoughts on it, but you have a ton of posts in your Autism tag.

[conuly]

Yes and no. We've known for years that nobody could replicate his "results", and last year (the year before?) it was confirmed that his study was seriously flawed... but this is the first time they've outright called it fraud. There's a difference between being an incompetent scientist and actively making shit up.

[dragonwolf]

Ah, ok. I was under the impression that they already ruled it a fraud a few years ago, at least. Must have just been them suspecting and investigating it.

[pne]

Also, http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Isn't this old news?

[conuly]

Apparently the fact that it was a pack of nonsense is old news, but the fact that it was deliberate fraud is new news.

[redbird]

This is the difference between "he was wrong and careless" and "he was deliberately falsifying data." Carelessness doesn't open him to perjury charges; if he was falsifying data and using it to testify in court, that's potentially a criminal matter.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/01/05/ca_autism_lawsuit/index.html

Seen this?

[conuly]

I have now, thanks :)

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

Clearly, you and I are both utterly stunned by this new revelation. Yep.

[conuly]

I'm speechless with shock.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I'm not amazed and surprised either, because most of what I've heard coming out of the 'Wakefield camp' has been emotion-based, anecdote-based, frankly ignorant ranting. Hello, is the scientific method no longer taught in school? (That wouldn't surprise me either.) The plural of anecdote is not data, and you have to have data to do science.

Why all these arguments about the interpretations of these small, special-interest-funded studies? Why don't we have a big stinkin' hue-and-cry for some MAJOR studies, conducted so impeccably by scientists so carefully selected no profit-motive or axe to grind either way, that nobody will be able to complain about the experimental methodology? Wouldn't that be the scientific thing to do?

Yeah, and that's exactly why it will never be done: because all of the groups that do have axes to grind and profits to protect will do everything necessary to block them.

Consider: if one looks across-the-board at both the research and the anecdotal evidence (remember, everything autistics say about ourselves is also 'anecdotal') it becomes clear that the whole concept of 'autism' is a chimera. What we have is an uncounted and uncountable, but very large, number of people whose perception, cognition, emotion and behavior are different from the norm in frankly 'heterogenous' ways. "If you've met one autistic, you've met one autistic", because we differ from one another as much as we differ from everybody else.

How likely is it, that all these different kinds of difference have one simple cause, or type of cause? Not bloody likely. What's emerging is a lot of complex causes all interacting with each other within the developing brain. Certain genetic profiles may be predisposed to certain types of adaptations to certain stressors, particularly viral stressors, and most particularly retro-viral stressors - which, as has been well established in HIV studies, are prone to be triggered by inoculations.

So, susceptible genetic profile + ubiquitous vertically-transmitted retrovirii = higher probability of brain trauma in response to inflammation triggered by viral overload - which can come from an MMR shot, or a tick-bite, or a bout of mono, or exposure to rodent droppings, and those are just the Main Suspects. All that is before we even get near any of the social/psychological causes - all the Different = Bad messages children get while growing up in a notably cruel, confusing, duplicitous society; the emotional abuse all children suffer as a matter of course - or any of the non-viral causes of systemic inflammation, malabsorption of nutrients, nutritional deficits, environmental toxins, EMF pollution...

People don't want to hear that. People want a nice simple one-word label, a diagnostic label, that explains everything and doesn't leave anything out, and makes them sound Smart for using it because that implies that they understand the scientific concepts behind it all, without having to slog through all these pages and pages of scientific papers.

[Oh look, there goes the Emperor streaking buck-nekkid down the street again...]

[leora.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I think the scientific method either isn't always taught in schools or it's covered so briefly without having kids truly use it that they aren't given a chance to truly understand it. It's one of the things that I would really like to see changed.

I'm thrilled about the class of 8 year olds that recently did an actual experiment with bees and managed to publish their results. That was a teacher who wanted them doing real science. Who had them investigate a question, figure out ways to test hypotheses, and look at the results.

But too often, I think kids are taught more about researching for known answers than how to do real science.

[conuly]

Sadly, I think the scientific method either isn't always taught in schools or it's covered so briefly without having kids truly use it that they aren't given a chance to truly understand it. It's one of the things that I would really like to see changed.

You know, it just pisses me off. The scientific method shouldn't be taught in a set unit alongside measurements and classroom rules, and yes there will be a test. Kids should be DOING science, every class, every year since they enter school. They should be making experiments and making mistakes and going back and fixing their work to make it better and to see if they can replicate their results.

And then we wonder why so many Americans don't believe in global warming, or don't believe in evolution, or whatever else. But the problem isn't whether or not they believe in these, it's whether or not they understand how science works to come to these conclusions. They were failed from the start!

[leora.livejournal.com]

*sits quietly in your choir*

[conuly]

I have a similar rant about the teaching of history, of course. In my less lucid moments I want to become a science (or history) teacher just to fix it, but I'm sure I'd be burned out by the (idiotic) system within days, if not minutes. Whose bright idea was it to teach these things completely backwards like that?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but who says you can only teach within the (idiotic) system? I started in the system, but then jumped ship when I had my own child and went to nannying instead, where I could teach my own way.

Childrens' play is a cultural artifact in many ways - the games and songs and skills that get passed down from older to younger children; stuff one can make out of bits-and-bobs, pranks to play, things to do - like Roxaboxen (http://www.amazon.com/Roxaboxen-Alice-Mclerran/dp/0688075924), right? But these days families are smaller, extended families don't stay together so much, and unrelated children of different ages don't mingle in free-range child-directed interaction any more, so the child-culture has become impoverished.

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

Shocking, indeed.

Next thing you know, there'll be a study released that claims that the sky really is blue.

/fails at sarcasm forever

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

In other not-shocking news, Johnny Weir has come out as gay!

[conuly]

Who now?

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

This fellow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Weir

[conuly]

He's 26! He certainly waited a while.

But then, reading the wikipedia article it sounds more like he didn't want to deal with the busybodies, not that he was actually keeping secrets. I don't blame him for that - his personal life isn't a matter for public speculation.

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

The reason why it's funny is exactly because he wasn't acting like Mr. Straight Man for a long time, he was just refusing to come right out and say it.

I wish we lived in an enlightened age where you could just be who you were and not have to come out at all.

[conuly]

You know, it's not. It only looks that way during the day because the sun keeps us from seeing it clearly.

[steorra (from livejournal.com)]

Nice answer!