Andrew Wakefield, professional fraud made at least three trips to the Minnesota Somali community between 2010 and 2011 to pimp his faux concern about autism and measles jabs. The result was a 50% uptake in the MMR jab as of 2013. Even before his visits, Wakefield's fraudulent 1998 study linking MMR jabs to autism and visits from other anti-vaxx groups impacted this community and decreased the MMR vaccine uptake from ~90% to 54% sparking an outbreak in 2011 after his visits there.
Andrew Wakefield promised this community he would investigate their autism rate; he never did. Instead he convinced them to eschew vaccination and gave them measles outbreaks. That's the Wakefield Touch.
Update 18 April 2017: The Minnesota Department of Health has confirmed a ninth measles case in Hennepin County in an unvaccinated child.
Update 20 April 2017: The Minnesota Department of Health has confirmed eleven cases of measles in Hennepin County all in children ages 1-5 years old, nine confirmed in unvaccinated children and nine in the Somali community.
Update 22 April 2017: The Minnesota Department of Health has confirmed twelve cases of measles in Hennepin County all in children under 5 years old and all unvaccinated. The uptake of MMR in the Somali community there is 42% in children under the age of two years old.
Update 25 April 2017: The Minnesota Department of Health has confirmed twenty cases of measles in Hennepin County now. One child less than one year old has been infected and 50% of infected children have been hospitalised. Sixteen children have been confirmed unvaccinated.
Update 27 April 2017: The Minnesota Department of Health has confirmed 24 cases of measles in Hennepin County. Twenty-three of the 24 cases have been confirmed UNVACCINATED. All children infected are five years old and younger. It has been confirmed that NONE of the infected children were vaccinated, 50% have been hospitalised and the infected children are between 10 months and 5 years old. The outbreak may have emanated from a daycare.
Update 1 May 2017: The Minnesota Department of Health has confirmed 32 cases of measles, 30 in Hennepin County and has spread with one in Ramsey County and one in Stearns County. Of the 32 measles cases, only one child has received a single MMR jab, all others are UNVACCINATED.
Update 5 May 2017: The Minnesota Department of Health has confirmed 41 cases of measles which has spread to Crow Wing County involving another unvaccinated child. The stats of this outbreak are:
• 1 involves an adult and the rest are children age 10 or younger
• 39 involve people who were not vaccinated against the disease
• 34 are from Minnesota's Somali community
The case previously reported from Stearns County was ruled out as measles with confirmatory testing.
Anti-vaxx groups continue to stoke unfounded fears of vaccines causing autism among the Somali community in Hennepin County.
Update 8 May 2017: The Minnesota Department of Health has confirmed the measles outbreak is up to 48 cases.
- 45 in Hennepin County
- 2 in Ramsey County
- 1 in Crow Wing County
- 45 confirmed to be unvaccinated
- 1 had 1 dose of MMR
- 2 had 2 doses of MMR
- 41 of the cases are Somali Minnesotan
- 47 confirmed to be unvaccinated
- 1 had 1 dose of MMR
- 2 had 2 doses of MMR
- 1 case has unknown vaccination status
- 48 in children (ages 0-17 years)
- 3 cases in adults
- 46 of the cases are Somali Minnesotan
- 49 in Hennepin County
- 3 in Ramsey County
- 4 in Crow Wing County
- 2 in Le Sueur County
- 55 confirmed to be unvaccinated
- 1 had 1 dose of MMR
- 2 had 2 doses of MMR
- 55 in children (ages 0-17 years)
- 3 cases in adults
- 49 of the cases are Somali Minnesotan
Update 22 May 2017: The Minnesota Department of Health has confirmed the measles outbreak is up to 66 cases:
- 56 in Hennepin County
- 4 in Ramsey County
- 4 in Crow Wing County
- 2 in Le Sueur County
- 62 confirmed to be unvaccinated
- 1 had 1 dose of MMR
- 3 had 2 doses of MMR
- 63 in children (ages 0-17 years)
- 3 cases in adults
- 57 of the cases are Somali Minnesotan
- 64 in Hennepin County
- 3 in Ramsey County
- 4 in Crow Wing County
- 2 in Le Sueur County
- 68 confirmed to be unvaccinated
- 2 had 1 dose of MMR
- 3 had 2 doses of MMR
- 70 in children (ages 0-17 years)
- 3 cases in adults
- 60 of the cases are Somali Minnesotan
Thank you for calling this for what it is: Andrew Wakefield's fault. He hasn't prevented a single case of autism with his con, but he has brought suffering and injury to this community now, not once, but twice.
ReplyDeleteHere is the link to the Dr. Wakefield's article from 1998:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(97)11096-0/abstract
This article isn't about autism at all. The word "autism" comes only because 9 of 12 children had autism. Dr. Wakefield is a gastroenterologist, he published his article with 12 other scientists, were all of them frauds?
The conclusion was:
"We have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children
that may be related to neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In
most cases, onset of symptoms was after measles,
mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations
are needed to examine this syndrome and its possible
relation to this vaccine."
As you see Dr. Wakefield just suggested a hypothesis, nothing else. That's why the outcry? Since when observation of abnormalities is fraud? It looks like pharma lobby made Dr. Wakefield the scapegoat for this very humble article... It's more than ridiculous.
Then explain why during the video press release he made the claim and told parents to get single vaccines? Also explain why he went to Minnesota to tell folks that the MMR vaccine caused autism at least three times five/six years ago (read the article).
DeleteFrom an article in 2011 NY Times:
DeleteThe conclusions of the 1998 paper by Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues were renounced by 10 of its 13 authors and later retracted by the medical journal The Lancet, where it was published. Still, the suggestion that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was connected to autism rattled parents worldwide; immunization rates for the MMR shot have never fully recovered.
A new examination found, by comparing the reported diagnoses in the paper with hospital records, that Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues had altered facts about patients in their study.
LONDON (AP) -- The first study to link a childhood vaccine to autism was based on doctored information about the children involved, according to a new report on the widely discredited research.
The analysis, by a British journalist, Brian Deer, found that despite the assertion in Dr. Wakefield's paper that the 12 children studied were normal until they had the MMR shot, 5 had previously documented developmental problems. Mr. Deer also found that all the cases were somehow misrepresented when he compared data from medical records and the children's parents."
...
In an accompanying editorial, the BMJ editor Fiona Godlee and colleagues called Dr. Wakefield's study ''an elaborate fraud.'' They said Dr. Wakefield's work in other journals should be examined to see if it should be retracted.
Last May, Dr. Wakefield was stripped of his right to practice medicine in Britain. Many other published studies have shown no connection between the MMR vaccination and autism.
But measles has surged since Dr. Wakefield's paper was published, and there are sporadic outbreaks in Europe and the United States. In 2008, measles was deemed endemic in England and Wales.
You did not answer my question. Where is his actual evidence? It is not in his paper.
ReplyDeleteHere is a thought: the USA introduced its first MMR vaccine in 1971. The USA is a much larger country than the UK, and had been using an MMR vaccine for almost twenty years longer. If it was associated with autism, it would have been noticed (and not in a small case series where the data had been fudged).
Please provide the verifiable documentation dated before 1990 that there was an increase in autism in the USA during the 1970s and 1980s coincident when the use of the MMR vaccine, which was the preferred vaccine for the 1978 Measles Elimination Program.
And provide real verifiable documentation, not the same old cut and paste pap used over and over and over again. Especially since it had nothing to do with the actual question.
Science is a process and, as such, is vulnerable to human foible. It works through constant scrutiny and re-evaluation. If you are truly interested in "science-based vaccine information", please consider this very well researched and documented article, not just about the Wakefield case, but professional research in general http://ahrp.org/laffaire-wakefield-shades-of-dreyfus-bmjs-descent-into-tabloid-science/
ReplyDeleteOh please, a slightly slick anti-vaxx disinformation site thinly-veiled as a legitimate scientific organisation. Can't you people ever provide legitimate sources?
Delete