Thursday, August 8, 2013

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.

2 comments:

  1. Someone needs to ask him where Vijendra Singh is presently employed. I have tried to find it, and it seems he has been part of a couple of shady outfits after leaving Utah. His name is coupled with Hugh Fudenberg and his transfactor lunacy, http://4lifeww-transferfactor.blogspot.com/

    There is even a video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro_iUwltW4A

    By the way, from page 45 of my hardcover copy of Offit's Autism's False Prophets it says that Singh's science was seriously flawed. First autistic children do not have nerve cell damage, and the test for measles antibodies did not detect them.

    Unfortunately the source for that bit of information is a personal communication with a couple of CDC guys. Singh did not even rate a mention in any official documentation. Not only a bad scientist, but a nonentity... and an old one at that!

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  2. Well he has tried to fix it:
    http://www.medicaldaily.com/autism-and-vaccines-fears-persist-despite-overwhelming-evidence-mmr-vaccine-safe-251333

    ReplyDelete