Daily Dose of Common Sense

Earlier this year, a brief story appeared in the Times Online (UK) revealing how the data was fixed in the MMR/Autism study that sparked the current vaccine controversy.

The Sunday Times, along with the General Medical Council (our AMA), investigated into the claims made by Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 study. In the original study, 8 of 12 families at one clinic blamed the MMR shot for their child’s autism. The Times reviewed medical documents and witnesses from the original study, and they discovered that Dr. Wakefield changed and manipulated the patients’ data. Again, both CHANGED and MANIPULATED patient data. In fact, in many cases, medical concerns regarding the child had been raised before the MMR shot was administered.

If this one little study doesn’t sound like a big deal, here is an alarming fact from the article:

Despite involving just a dozen children, the 1998 paper’s impact was extraordinary. After its publication, rates of inoculation fell from 92% to below 80%. Populations acquire “herd immunity” from measles when more than 95% of people have been vaccinated.

Last week official figures showed that 1,348 confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales were reported last year, compared with 56 in 1998. Two children have died of the disease.

This was *the* major study that started all the anti-vaccination hysteria. Now that it’s been debunked, we can only hope the truth starts to get out. There is no scientific proof that vaccines cause autism. Here is a great video by the CDC that discusses some of the common vaccination fears.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 7:40 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.