Deer on Wakefield

Brian Deer's BMJ article on Wakefield's anti-MMR work is available here. It's interesting reading; Deer reports that none of the twelve cases in Wakefield's paper were accurately described. In particular, he reports that timelines were altered; kids who showed initial symptoms of autism six months after MMR vaccination, or a week before, were all represented as showing their first symptoms shortly after the vaccination.

Out of curiosity, does anybody have a feel for how much profit Big Pharma makes out of providing childhood inoculations... as opposed to the profits they would make providing lifetime care to kids suffering permanent after-effects from mumps/measles/rubella complications? I suspect the latter is substantially greater than the former but that's just my guess.

Nightmare fail

Last night I dreamed that I was in one of those Saw-style things where Creepy Guy (in this case played by Rob Zombie for some reason) kidnaps you and you have to find the 'correct' answer to some sort of philosophical question about the meaning of life, or die a horrible death. We were driving around with me in the back of his car. I assume this was supposed to be a nightmare.

Me: "Okay, I'll have a go at your question, but you do realise I'm only staying in this dream for as long as it's interesting, right? So be warned, if your answer is something stupid, I'm just going to skip to the next dream in the queue."

Creepy Guy: *sulks*

The end.