I called it - first measles death in the ongoing outbreak in the Dutch Bible belt

I was at university when a reactor in the Chernobyl atomic power plant burst, causing the largest radiation contamination before Fukushima. I recall that for years, milk in Europe would have the Becquerel printed on them. What I remember most about April 1986 is the face of my Physics professor, when he announced that he would not teach for the rest of the semester, since he was the main radiation safety advisor to his party. There was just quiet resignation, not a hint of triumph or satisfaction about having been right all along about the dangers of this particular type of power plant.

Without wanting to sound overly dramatic, I have an idea how he feels. Today, the Dutch Health Ministry RIVM announced the death of a 17 year old young woman from measles complications. She had not been vaccinated against measles, like most in the current (and previous) outbreak(s) in the Dutch Bible belt. I called it. I did not want to be right. However, measles in the developed world have a mortality rate of 1 reported death per 1000 reported cases. Last week, the reported cases in the Netherlands reached 2016 of which 121 had been treated in the hospital, 61 with pneumonia and 1 with encephalitis. It was just a matter of time. And while the death of one young woman, as tragic as it may be, cannot be compared to the death and devastation that Chernobyl caused, it would have been totally preventable. Bitter.

Get your MMRs.

Sharyl Attkisson and CBS Dehumanise Autists for Ratings

This past Friday Sharyl Attkisson, a journalist for CBS Network presented a "documentary" about a teenage autistic boy, Alex Spourdalakis who was pre-meditatively and brutally murdered by his mother and godmother.  If the murder of a special needs child by his own mother is horrific enough, Ms. Attkisson  and CBS add more insult to Alex's needless death by airing a carefully-staged faux documentary by none other than ex-doctor Andrew Wakefield.

Wakefield and his band of ghouls via his Autism Media Channel teamed up with Lisa Goes and Alex's mother Dorothy Spourdalakis creating the perfect storm of autism "biomed" crankery, narcissism and grotesque exploitation of a helpless teen autist for the shameless self-promotion that Wakefield has become so deft in.  Wakefield peddled this faux documentary along with other biomed stories to reality show execs earlier this year that featured Wakefield and his slimy crony gastroenterologist Arthur Krigsman that featured Wakefield as hero saving children from the horror that is autism.  I hope the sarcasm is noted.

It doesn't appear as though any of the represented networks were interested but Sharyl Attkisson and CBS didn't turn him down.  It is beyond disgusting that no one with editorial powers at CBS looked at this "documentary" and didn't even question its airing let alone question Ms. Attkisson's use of it with absolutely no journalistic ethics applied to the story.  Although since Sharyl Attkisson and CBS have been tools of anti-vaccine cranks that inhabit the cesspool known as Age of Autism, it shouldn't be surprising that they would think this is a nifty idea.

Alex Spourdalakis was a human being deserving of proper care and dignity, instead he was exploited to garner attention for the most execrable excuses for humans, one being his own mother.  Ms. Spourdalakis and her new-found mouthpieces Lisa Goes and Andrew Wakefield plead for help; she received several offers but only wanted an attorney.   There are so many inconsistencies in events leading up to Alex's death yet Ms. Attkisson and CBS exercised absolutely no due diligence verifying and fact-checking any facet of Wakefield's faux documentary. 

But that is not even the worst of Ms. Attkisson's and CBS's offences; they have given a platform to a group of people who routinely de-humanise autists and presented them as though they speak for the autism community.  These people are the same who say that children are better off dead than autistic.   Alex Spourdalakis was purposely shown nearly naked and restrained.  What kind of parent would not only allow such exploitation of her own child but stage it for ghouls like Wakefield to film and shop around for wider distribution?  Ms. Attkisson and CBS have promoted the dangerous idea that disabled people are expendable and their murderers are sympathetic characters to be pitied for their burdens and admired for their sacrifices.

CBS and Sharyl Attkisson owe Alex Spourdalakas and the autism community an enormous apology, a retraction of the story they aired and a real journalistic piece on the escalating victimisation of and violence perpetrated against disabled people.  They are the victims, not their murderers.  I urge you to contact CBS at the following to air your disgust (politely please) at their portrayal of the Spourdalakis case and the wider message that it's acceptable to exploit and murder special needs people:

CBS Chairman Jeffrey Fager, c/o CBS News, 524 West 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10019

cbsaudiencenews@cbs.com

(hat tip to lilady who acquired the contact information and is spreading it wide and far)

Other bloggers who have weighed in:

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2013/08/31/whitewashing-the-brutal-murder-of-alex-spourdalakis/

http://thepoxesblog.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/it-is-now-okay-to-kill-your-child/

http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/vaccine-deniers-think-murder-alex-spourdalakis-acceptable/

http://paulacdurbinwestbyautisticblog.blogspot.com/

http://sciencebasedpharmacy.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/no-autism-doesnt-justify-murdering-your-child/

Added 2 September 2013:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/09/02/sharyl-attkisson-and-cbs-news-an-epic-fail-in-reporting-on-the-murder-of-autistic-teen-alex-spourdalakis/

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/sharyl-attkisson-promoting-wakefields-narrative-about-murder-alex-spourdalakis/

http://sciencebasedpharmacy.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/no-autism-doesnt-justify-murdering-your-child/

http://www.harpocratesspeaks.com/2013/09/cbs-sympathizes-with-murderers.html

Added 3 September 2013:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cbs-news-must-retract-report-excusing-mothers-murder-of-autistic-child/

http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2013/09/cbss-sharyl-attkisson-this-time-an-apologist-for-murder.html

Dr Bob is horrified and rushes to get his name removed from anti-vaccine group

naw, not really.

Then again, members of that anti-vaccine group that made Dr Bob Sears their administrator tell me that he is not posting there anyway, so the Parents and Others against Vaccination are probably just trying to artificially blow up their "legitimacy" (look, we have a real MD).

oh look, Matthew's digging himself in deeper

after some back and forth tweeting as a consequence of yesterday's poorly researched Daily Mail rehash, during which Matthew Mientka assured us that "he agreed with us all" and was informed of his various oversights

he now takes the biscuit with his lazy edits:

I am actually a bit speechless. We have lost a "new" from the title, but it now reads "Vaccines And Autism: Evidence shows "Strong Link" Between Autism And MMR Vaccine" - as if the whole body of scientific literature pointed to a connection, which is, of course, opposite of the truth. Matthew continues:

Scientific evidence has suggested a strong association between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, following nearly a generation of contentious debate on the vaccine's safety.

Actually, it hasn't. Or if a paper has, it has since been rebuked or retracted. There is agreement in the scientific community that MMR is not linked to autism.

The 03.02 PM revision also still retained the 2002 statement of the former alleged spokesman of the British National Autistic Society, squeezed between more recent info making it appear as if Harris still was the spokesman for the NAS (which he isn't) or the NAS actually called for the suspension of the MMR (which they aren't):

I now no longer assume a lazy journalist was out for a quick headline, beating others to the story. I now assume either complete incompetence or wilful misrepresentation of the facts.

Edited to correct that Mr Harris is actually working for Jabs, a UK anti-vaccine organisation. This is a mistake that Mr Mientka took from the Daily Mail web site, but the BBC had it right in 2002.

Trau schau wem (a Dr Bob post)

dedicated to Chris Hickie, MD, PhD

It's been a while since we talked about Dr. Bob Sears, the author of The Vaccine Book, in which he advertises his "alternative vaccination schedule" (which almost doubles the number of office visits at $$$). Dr. Bob, as he likes to call himself, has been widely criticised for his anti-vaccine-critical stance, by us and many others. Don't know how people get the idea he could be anti-vaccine, actually - cannot be his staunchly pro-vaccine friends, like Andy Wakefield

It cannot be his absolutely unwavering pro-vaccine activism on Mothering.com:

 

For any parent who decides not to vaccinate, I don't try to talk them into vaccinating. Going unvaccinated is not a dangerous choice. It's a reasonably small risk.

It cannot be his well measured and positive foreword to an unreservedly pro-vaccine book:

.../... blablabla .../...

With so much care not to be mistaken for someone who is actually against vaccination, I must wonder how Dr. Bob Sears ended up one of the administrators of the:

Parents and Others against Vaccinations 

(my emphasis) facebook group. Ever so slightly embarrassing to get caught on that one amongst anti-vaccine's finest:

If I had not done so already, I would seriously seek my vaccine information somewhere else.

*Trau schau wem = watch whom you trust

Dutch measles outbreak: 141 more cases this week, no death reported (whew)

The new measles numbers and map have been released, the past week saw 141 new cases of measles for a total of 921. Luckily no death has been reported, and I hope it stays that way.

Have a look at the map - the new cases are red, the old ones grey. See how the majority of the new cases stays along the Bible Belt and only the odd case escapes herd immunity and pops up in areas of >95% MMR coverage. I hope the Dutch are going to release an animated map at some point, because it just so beautifully illustrates the principles of epidemiology.

Matthew Mientka, Medical Daily, takes the prize for Daily Mail necromancing

and the piss poorest, most irresponsible and non-researched reporting I have seen in a decade and I have seen a lot. His latest piece in the Medical Daily's "Healthy Living" section is headed:

In his write up, Mr Mientka essentially recycles a Daily Mail article - this one:

which reports on a paper from Dr Vijendra Singh which finds inappropriate antibodies in autistic children vaccinated with MMR. If that sounds both familiar and old, it is not surprising. That article is 11 years old! Granted, as previously blogged by Liz Ditz and jdc325, the Daily Fail does not often provide date stamps on their articles, but the page info clearly has 2002-08-09 as a publication date. JDC did write to the Daily Mail in 2011, but it seems they did not add a date. However, the fact that the "current" measles cases in the Daily Mail article are compared to "the last quarter of 2001" should have given Mr Mientka a hint. Or if he misread that, seeing Andrew Wakefield being referred to as "a British expert", who "found fragments of the measles virus from the MMR jab in the guts of autistic children"..."earlier this year" should have made him suspicious.  Or that the article is "no longer" accepting comments? At the very least, a quick check with the National Autistic Society in the UK would have shown them NOT to call for suspending the MMR and Jonathan Harris has not worked for NAS since 2008 anyway is the Birmingham contact for Jabs. It is one thing for an anti-vaccine cureby or granola-mummy page to fall for such an obviously outdated article, but a journalist, one would think, should be a bit more careful. At the time of me writing this, the article had been tweeted 18 times.

Todd W. was fast to ask Mr Mientka for his sources - the answer was a bit vague:

This one, a few minutes later, is a bit more promising:

Yes, please! In all likelihood, everyone will still be playing "whack a geriatric mole" for weeks, thanks to one person's shoddy research.

Edited to correct that Mr Harris is actually working for Jabs, a UK anti-vaccine organisation. This is a mistake that Mr Mientka took from the Daily Mail web site, but the BBC had it right in 2002.