Friday, February 19, 2010
Update on Andrew Wakefield
In an earlier post, I drew attention to the anti-vax hero Andrew Wakefield. Today's Austin American Statesman reported that Wakefield has left his executive director position at the Austin-based Thoughtful House Center for Children that he helped found. It's possible that they can rehabilitate their reputation without him. Late last month, Wakefield was found "irresponsible" by the British General Medical Council for performing unnecessary invasive tests on children. He also "flouted the rules in pursuit of his theory – and profit". A hearing in April will determine whether he is guilty of misconduct. If he is found guilty, he could be stripped of his medical license.
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Note the striking resemblance to LOTR's Wormtongue. Coincidence? I think not.
ReplyDeleteAlllllll a Big Pharma conspiracy to shut out the truth. They've payed off the court systems and anyone who isn't delusional.
ReplyDeleteWakefield is a contemptible individual who was primarily responsible for the loss of confidence in very effective vaccines. This has resulted in the return of high numbers of cases of measles and now mumps. These are not harmless diseases. The incidence of neuralgic complications and sterility is orders of magnitude higher than any incidence of vaccine complications.
ReplyDeleteProduction of vaccines is a labor intensive and relatively low profit for Big Pharma. As a result most members of the evil consortium will have nothing to do with them. That leaves them free to produce higher profit products as all natural Big Herb where one does not even have to worry about quality control. Or if they are really cynical they can sell distilled water as homeopathic remedies. Of course that water must be "shaken not stirred" in order to gain its power.
One can only hope that Dr. Wakefield will move his sorry ass out of Austin. Between him and the SBOE the sewerage treatment plant has more that it can handle.
Let's just hope he didn't take blood samples from any Texan children: without their parents' consent.
ReplyDelete@ David CT
ReplyDeleteThe pharma conspiracy theories also forget one thing.
a) there's not just one pharma mega corp...there's competition
b) It can be more beneficial to destroy a competitors business at a loss (or less prophet then they get from it).
Therefore, even if company X doesn't want a cure because they make treatments...company Y has no such restraint. If they can come up with a cure, they steal the business from X...they don't make as much as X does from it, but that doesn't matter...they wouldn't get all that competing anyway. Hell, companies have done that at a LOSS, meaning they are willing to loose money in the short term to eliminate a competitors market/take it over in a reduced capacity. Microsoft for example gambled with that strategy and it paid off well for them.
Company X making a cure for HIV would mean that they would get customers out of all HIV people AND take their business away from Company Y (which means investors will go to X instead of Y boosting their stock). Pharma as a whole actually DOSN'T have that big a incentive to hide a cure.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/04/10/wakefield-interview.aspx
ReplyDelete