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Wednesday 9 September 2015

The MMR-Autism Controversy, and the dishonesty of Medical 'Science'

The controversy concerning the links between the MMR vaccine and damaged children, particularly autism carries on, as it has now for some 30 years, although of course it has done so since 2004 outside politics and government, outside the conventional medical establishment, and most notably free from any coverage in the mainstream media.

The overwhelming response to my recent blog, "The MMR Vaccine, Autism, and the silence and culpability of the Political, Medical and Media Establishment" is one of incredulity and disbelief. Most people believe that within our free and democratic societies, supported by our free and ever-questioning press, that it would be impossible for pharmaceutical drug companies to get away with injecting into the veins of our children such damaging vaccines.

Ask your doctor, question the NHS, look for coverage on television or radio, or within the press, and you will be told that childhood (and other) vaccines are entirely safe. In particular, you will hear that there is no connection between the epidemic rise of autism, and contemporaneous increase in the use of the MMR vaccine. The rise of both, parallel as they are, is just a coincidence.

After all, we are told, there is scientific evidence that there is no connection between childhood vaccines and autism.

Conventional medicine is based on scientific evidence, mostly coming from RCT (randomised, controlled tests), said by the conventional medical establishment to be the 'gold standard' of evidence.

So what is this about medical scientists, under the auspices of the powerful USA CDC (Centre for Disease Control), falsifying evidence? Surely, no such thing would happen within our open, democratic society? So perhaps, some additional information might be useful, to support my previous blog.

In 2004, the MMR vaccine was being questioned, largely arising from the work of Dr Andrew Wakefield in London, which had linked the vaccine with gastrointestinal disorders, which themselves were linked to autism. Quite rightly, the media were discussing his work, and its implications. The public was being informed about the debate. Many parents decided not to allow their children to be vaccinated. So the take-up rate of the vaccine plummeted, so much so that the conventional medical establishment decided to take action to stop this. The CDC embarked on a study that was supposed to bury the questions that had been raised about Autism, and the MMR vaccine.

The researcher compared the ages of 624 autistic children at the time of their first MMR vaccination with over 1,800 children who had developed normal. The results showed that there was no significant link between the MMR vaccine and the development of autism. More, the study showed that there was no 'statistically significant' increased risk of autism for any racial or ethnic group. This evidence was published in the medical journal, Paediatrics.

Following this, the debate was supposed to end. It was no longer possible to discuss it within the media because this study proved, conclusively, that the link between the MMR vaccine and Autism was conclusively proven to be untrue. I remember listening to a BBC radio phone-in programme where one parent protested that her child had been damaged. She was quickly silenced. This was not possible. Medical science had proven otherwise!

Other people did try to raise the issue. In 2006, Dr Peter Fletcher, Chief Scientific Officer for the UK's Department of Health said that he had seen a steady accumulation of evidence from researchers, and medical professionals worldwide, linking the MMR vaccine and brain damage to children. He is  reported as saying, the 'The Healthier Life" website:

          "There are very powerful people in positions of great authority in Britain, and elsewhere, who have staked their reputations and careers on the safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves".

And protect themselves they have done. Such is the power and influence of the conventional medical establishment, such discussion has been censored in politics and government, within the national health service, and most criminally of all, within the mainstream media.

I use the word 'criminal' on the basis that the exercise of media censorship over the issue has meant that since 2004, millions of children have been vaccinated, and many thousands of children have contracted Autism, as a direct result of their silence. For over a decade, parents have been denied the ability to make an 'informed choice' because the media has not provided them with all the information that should have been made available to them.

Yet the culpability of media censorship has now been compounded.

Brian Hooker, Associate Professor of Biology, Simpson University, California, decided to take a fresh look at the date underlying the 2004 study. As he was doing so, he was contacted by Dr Thompson, a co-author of that study. Hooker and Thompson, who appears to have had a sudden conversion to the truth, had several discussions about the manipulation of data that had been done in order to obtain the 'correct' result!

Thompson revealed that the study had discovered a 340% increase in autism for African-American boys taking the MMR vaccine. He further revealed that he had discussed this evidence in February 2004 with Dr Julie Gerberding, then head of the CDC. Incidentally, Gerberding is now president of Merck's vaccine division, the drug company who has most profited from the MMR vaccine! Presumably, Merck would have been very grateful for the CDC falsifying the evidence against their vaccine. Thompson was fully aware of the 'problem' for Merck at the time. He wrote a letter in which he said:

          "I will  have to present several problematic results relating to statistical associations between the receipt of the MMR vaccine and autism".

But, of course, he never did. Presumably, in the full knowledge of the CDC, the 'problematic' information was suppressed. The study sample was reduced by 41%, and most of the African American data was thereby excluded. And this was why the conventional medical establishment was able to deny any link between the MMR vaccine and Autism.

  • Who, apart from the drug company concerned, benefitted by this decision? 
  • What does such a study say about the honesty of the 'science' that underlies them?
  • What does this study say about the CDC, whose former head now works for the drug company whose sales were boasted so profitably? 
  • What does this entire episode say about the honesty of the conventional medical establishment, particularly those at the very top?

And what does this say about our mainstream media? This information has been known now since August 2014, and not a word has been mentioned about it. If it was bad enough for the silence after 2004, what about the silence since 2014? What is the news story?

  • A leading scientist has admitted lying about an important piece of medical 'research'!
  • It is clear that an important 'scientific' study has been falsified!
  • A leading medical agency, the CDC, has been caught lying about the safety of a vaccine!
  • Many parents have submitted their children for the MMR vaccine on the basis of its findings!
  • The number of autistic children has risen alarmingly since 2004!

So why is this not an important news story for the media? They must know about it! So is this affair not a matter of public interest? The ongoing silence is not a question of 'uncertainty' about the facts surrounding the situation. One of the scientists involved in the study has admitted his involvement in wrongdoing! The enormous implications of this wrongdoing is quite clear, not only in relation to this single study, but raising questions about the whole validity of medical science, and the honesty of the conventional medical establishment.

This story is not going to go away. There are too many people, like myself, who are determined that people should know this information. So the longer the mainstream media ignores it, the more questions will be raised about their honesty, about their inability to publish 'negative' stories about conventional medicine. Why are they ignoring it? What forces, what influences are at work that ensures that the media cover-up continues?

And, as I asked in my previous blog, what is the culpability of news organisations that refuse to tell people about this information? What is their responsibility to the parents of children who continue to  take their children to doctors to have a vaccine they believe to be 'entirely safe'?