So to the particulars of the inquiry into Wakefield's medical practices...
[wiki] centred on claims, brought forth by journalist Brian Deer, that autistic and neurotypical children may have been subjected to unnecessary lumbar punctures [!!] and colon biopsies [!!],[5] including one colonoscopy that caused the child life-threatening perforations of the bowel [!!].[6]
WTF. Authorities will revoke Wakefield's license? And what's the likelihood of former "patients" civil suits? Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Publication of research based on a 12 person sample is so ludicrous
It may be worse than that. The GMC is also investigating where the twelve children came from. It appears at least eight of them might have come to him specifically because he might be able to show a link between MMR and autism and was working on a legal case. Wakefield had already received £50,000 of legal aid money from a firm of solicitors and subsequently received £435,643 (plus expenses).
The lumbar punctures had to be cleared by an ethics committee as being in the best interests of the children. Part of the matter before the GMC is whether or not they were genuinely clinically necessary, rather than conducted for research.
(paraphrased from Bad Science by Ben Goldacre)
Sampling errors are blatant in narrative and empirical premises.
These invasive procedures moreover are given as data producing "clinical investigation" of non-specific colitis for the published report on autistic spectrum behavorial disorders-- I'm reading the pdf-- in addition to lab analyses.
Also the "research" states no hypothesis!
So Lancet "ethical" review of Wakefield's methodology after the fact and explicit approval of this qualification study publication rather than professional sanction is exponentially disturbing CYA.
Four children did not undergo psychiatric assessment in hospital; all had been assessed professionally elsewhere, so these assessments were used as the basis for their behavioural diagnosis... After bowel preparation, ileocolonoscopy was performed by SHM or MAT under sedation with midazolam and pethidine. Paired frozen and formalin-fixed mucosal biospsy samples were taken from the terminal ileum; ascending, transverse, descending, and sigmoid colons, and from the recturm. The procedure was recorded by video or still images, and were compared with images of the previous seven consecutive paediatric colonoscopies (four normal colonoscopies and three on children with ulcerative colitis), in which the physician reported normal appearances in the terminal ileum.... Also under sedation, cerebral magnetic-resonance imaging (MRfuckingI), electroencephalography (EEG) including visual, brain stem auditory, and sensory evoked potentials (where compliance made these possible), and lumbar punctures were done.
Whether or not comparisons in the series are same case or among the same subjects or between sample and control isn't specified.
just WTF. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Publication of research based on a 12 person sample is so ludicrous, it's difficult for me to imagine hysterical reaction to such obscure findings without assistance from the press and Wakefield Media LLC on the way up
There is a politically active, and respectably organised and funded, anti-vaccination movement that pre-dates Wakefield's hack study. That "helped" too.
And what's the likelihood of former "patients" civil suits?
Unlikely. How many televangelists have been sued by the flock they fleece?
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
