(no subject)

[lederhosen]

Via Pharyngula, a reminder that pharaceutical companies aren't the only ones who sometimes have vested interests.

Quick reminder: in 1998, researcher Andrew Wakefield published a paper in The Lancet proposing a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. This caused a worldwide panic about the dangers of MMR vaccination, and a substantial drop in vaccination rates. (UK rates dropped from 92% to 78%; put another way, that means more than twice as many susceptible kids, and because of the way diseases spreads that more than doubles the rate of infection.)

A few years later, Lancet retracted the article after the revelation that Wakefield's research had been funded by lawyers who were trying to sue vaccine manufacturers for causing autism in several children (the same children who Wakefield used as his subjects for this research).

Well, just recently, it became much more blatant: besides the funding for his research, Wakefield himself was paid over four hundred thousand pounds (plus expenses) for doing this research by the aforementioned lawyers. That sort of money tends to be a powerful incentive to find something that'll make your sponsors happy. (Also, it seems one of the referees who reviewed Wakefield's paper before publication was paid forty thousand pounds to do so, which is more than a little unusual.)

And the result? In April 2006, Britain recorded its first death from measles in 14 years - a thirteen-year-old boy who had not received the vaccination. This sort of bullshit kills people.

More about Wakefield's work here from Brian Deer, the Times journalist who did so much work to expose this.

Comments

[scascot.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that Mr. Wakefield and his sponsors should somehow be held liable in the death of the boy.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

That'd be fine by me. Unfortunately I doubt they'll end up paying damages, let alone jail time, but Wakefield is facing serious disciplinary charges from the General Medical Council that may well result in him getting struck off the register.

[manna]

See, there's nothing wrong with taking money to do research. Someone has to pay for it. There isn't even anything wrong with taking money from pharmaceutical companies, or lawyers. But the second that someone sends off a paper, or referees a paper, or writes an editorial, or hands out a press release, without declaring their conflict of interest plainly, *then* it's wrong. And people know it's wrong, because otherwise they would damn well declare it.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

There isn't even anything wrong with taking money from pharmaceutical companies, or lawyers.

I'm more inclined to file this under 'often a necessary evil' than 'nothing wrong'. Disclosure does go a long way to reduce the problems associated with conflicts of interest, to the point where sponsored research with disclosure might be better than no research, but it doesn't eliminate them. For example...

the second that someone sends off a paper, or referees a paper, or writes an editorial, or hands out a press release, without declaring their conflict of interest plainly, *then* it's wrong

But that's only half the picture. The other half, and much harder to deal with, is when somebody doesn't send off a paper or hand out a press release, because it would hurt their sponsors. Compulsory trial registration goes some way to combat this problem, but it's always going to be harder to police non-publications.

Peer review is a good thing, especially by peers who are aware of potential conflicts of interest, but the reviewers are still at a disadvantage compared to the person who actually did the work, and it's hard to be completely objective when you have four hundred thousand reasons to want one particular finding. (Not to mention that sponsors are presumably capable of seeking out researchers whose biases already lean a little in the right direction.)

[fluffy-cloud.livejournal.com]

Yesterday, I was watching Fox news (god I wish they would let us change the channel on the breakroom tv) and they had a segment about the link between vaccination and autism. They pretty much made out like it was fact.

[velvetink.livejournal.com]

Some people do get severe reactions to vaccinations. My daughter was hospitalized from the measles one, (it was pretty scary at the time) she did not get autism from it though (but measles!), discovered she was allergic to the medium (egg white) they used in the live vac's. This can be overcome by only using killed vac's.

[wingedkami.livejournal.com]

Will...not...rant...

I've never been vaccinated against mumps. Both measles and rubella twice for some reason, plus I'd had rubella by the time I got vaccinated the first time, but never mumps. The MMR wasn't a routine thing when I was the appropriate age.

And now there's a whole bunch of kids going round without any mumps vaccine which means they're putting me at risk as well. I don't want to get mumps. And nobody should be dying of measles in the UK.

And people who start talking bullshit about how vaccines don't work anyway need to be introduced to some germs.

[polydad.livejournal.com]

Seems to me a good DA or local-equivalent could make a manslaughter prosecution, if not stick, at least an unpleasant enough experience that "being Wakefielded" would become local professional jargon.

best,

Joel