Wakefield - What's the Real Story?


Wakefield - What's the Real Story?
by Jagannath Chatterjee
by Great Mothers (and others) Questioning Vaccines on Friday, October 28, 2011 at 6:24pm

There are many videos out there who describe parents of vaccine damaged children as "nutters". A classic is Dr Paul Offit who is the Head of Pediatrics at Children's Hospital, Philadelphia and holds a patent for the Rotavirus vaccine. He also owns the Merck chair at the Institute and has been rewarded for his tirade against vaccine victims by being offered a position in the IOM, USA. Paul delights in talking about Dr Andrew Wakefield, the "disgraced" reputed gastroenterologist of UK, MB, BS, FRCS, FRCPath, son of highly reputed physician parents, who had examined 12 autistic children who were either referred to him by doctors in the US or came to him directly. He, and another very reputed physician Dr J Walker Smith, and 10 others studied these children for two years, conducted all pathological tests and found a new type of gastrointestinal distress in these children which they termed illeal lymphoid hyperplasia. They also found the MMR vaccine strain measles virus in the guts of these children. 

The team then prepared a preliminary case study and called for more research into this new phenomenon. This was presented to Lancet and was published in 1998. Incidentally both Dr Wakefield and J Walker Smith have considerable publications in their names and are highly respected in their fields of work. Now the particular MMR vaccine in the UK had a controversial history. Before it was introduced in the UK it was already pulled out of the schedules of many countries for its high reactogenicity. But the UK health department had gone out of its way to purchase the vaccine and had illegally favored a particular manufacturer. 

Very soon reports of after effects started pouring in but the health department did not yield and justified its procurement. Parents of the victims then decided to sue the government for damages. Attorneys from the USA sought the help of Dr Wakefield. The UK health officials then threatened the Dean of the Institution where the research was taking place and tried their best to scuttle the case series. However the Dean reasoned that as his institute was then passing through a financial crisis, the novel research they were undertaking would help bring in funds. 

He then promoted Dr Wakefield to be the Head of Research for his many research activities and his constant endeavors to solve the funds crunch in the Institute. After the case series was selected for publication the Dean called for a Press Conference where the results of the study was declared on the day before it appeared in the Lancet. This set up a furor and the international press which was already aware of the adverse events surrounding the vaccine picked up the story and grilled both the UK health authorities and also questioned Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, about his own sons MMR vaccine status. Blair refused to reply but the doctor responsible let it slip that Blair had not vaccinated his own son. 

Matters reached a head where prominent heads were set to roll. The authorities then approached Murdoch's empire and the Sunday Times, London, appointed a freelance journalist Brian Deer to "investigate". Brian Deer assumed a false name and approached the parents of the 12 children who Wakefield et al studied and started threatening them. He also threatened Dr Wakefield and demanded some explanations from him. He was also helped by powerful government officials to get illegal access to the children's medical records. He was also given access to correspondence between the Dean and the Wakefield team. What Deer found was that the Dean had withheld critical information from Dr Wakefield and that two of the 12 children had some symptoms prior to being vaccinated by the MMR. He also found out that Wakefield had prepared a second research study protocol to help the US attorneys, an accepted procedure which is followed till this day.

The GMC then stepped into the picture. A long, the longest medical investigation in history, then ensued where the experts gave testimony against Dr Wakefield, testimony that was often contradictory in nature, testimony that depended upon a journalists investigation, testimony that refused to answer Wakefield's counter arguments, that went against documents available with the UK government, and finally the GMC found both Wakefield and Smith guilty of medical negligence as they staunchly supported their findings and refused to be cowed down. The 10 other doctors who were involved with the case series dissociated themselves from it, fearing persecution, and one parent withdrew while the 11 others solidly stood behind the Wakefield team. The licenses of Wakefield and Smith to practice in the UK was cancelled and they both relocated to the USA where they continue to help treat autistic children.

After a few years pressure was employed on Lancet to retract the case series. After putting up a token resistance Lancet complied. This was the first time in history that any case series was pulled out after publication. After all these there started a chain reaction and various medical scientists across the globe (Kawashaki et al, Timothy Buie et al, etc) replicated Dr Wakefield et al's findings and found the vaccine strain measles virus in the tissues, blood and CSF of autistic children. Other doctors too confirmed gastric abnormalities in autistic children and researchers pointed out that even psychiatrist Leo Kanner who first detected and wrote about autism in children in 1943 had noted gastric distress in the 11 children children he had studied and quoted their case studies.

A latest genetic study in autism has confirmed gastric abnormalities in autistic children and also recommended dietary intervention in these children. All this is vehemently denied by Dr Paul Offit, one who has never met or treated an autistic child in his life and never published any paper on autism, and who earns millions from his vaccine patent and whose jaunts and books are sponsored by the vaccine manufacturers.

Today doctors treating autistic children are being treated as pariahs, dubbed as quacks and persecuted. The latest facing the heat are Dr Mark Geier and Dr Anju Usman, both qualified in the DAN protocol. Dr Suzanne Humphires, a qualified nephrologist has recently been dubbed a quack when she noticed renal patients being treated in her hospital deteriorating after being administered vaccines. It is very interesting to note that every doctor investigating into the physical manifestations in autistic children are pointing fingers at vaccines, and this is what worries the establishment which is retaliating by persecuting them.

Billions of dollars spent on finding genetic links to autism have not found any significant link rather they have found out genetic mutations which they say are being caused by environmental toxins. The Joachim Hallmayer study, the largest so far, found it "doubtful" that autism is genetic. At best they say genes load the gun but the environment pulls the trigger. It will be of interest to know how the medical institutions react particularly as the 2003 CDC study denying the link between mercury in vaccines and autism has been found to be fraudulent, the database of the study has been shifted to private hands to keep it out of the reach of the Freedom of Information Act.

The Danish studies, widely cited, has suffered the ignominy of fraud after the principal investigators of the studies Dr Paul Thorsen is under US police investigation and faces extradition on 39 counts of fraud and 9 counts of money laundering for misappropriating a huge chunk of the CDC money that was allotted for those studies. Independent researchers (Bernard et al, Geier et al etc) have found considerable link between vaccines and autism.

Published studies show a host of evidence linking vaccines with a wide range of illnesses and disabilities. The famous Quackbuster who derided such studies for long has been himself found to be a quack, a psychologist who has never completed his degree and has no licence to practice. A "skeptic" now faces charges of pedophilia. So the empire seems to be falling apart.

What is interesting is that mainstream doctors investigating gastric distress in autistic children have started quoting the published studies of Wakefield who is now also being invited to speak in medical conferences. But authorities have gone too far to hide findings and obfuscating facts and there is no room for either retreat or retraction.

Our children face a clear and perceptible risk as fresh players like Bill Gates enter the fray and invest billions in vaccines. That the funds of the BMGF are heavily invested in the pharmaceutical and vaccine industry and that Bill Gates belongs to the Old Boys club is another chapter that I hope to dwell on later.