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On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:43:12 +0100, Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
It would have to be Mister Justice (bloody) Eady. That man is a lose
cannon and needs to be put out to grass.
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On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:25:06 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"Martin" <...@news.zen.co.uk...
No, he isn't. He's an excellent judge, who always takes great care to give
his judgments exactly in accordance with statute and precedent.
The fuckwit Paul Dacre, editor of the Mail, has made speeches attacking Eady
for his judgments, but that is based on ignorance and stupidity on Dacre's
part.
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On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:35:28 +0100, Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
I don't know anything about Paul Dacre, I don't read the mail unless
(usually) Kev posts sommat :)
The judgement he made for Simon Singh sounded most bizzare to me. Wasn't
there also the case where he put a gagging order on a bloke to prevent
him telling the press about his wife running off with a footballer?
Both seem most strange to me.
>
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On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:53:00 -0700 (PDT), Old Jinglebollocks <...@googlemail.com
That's not the issue.
What it really means is that what Menwith Hill has been doing covertly
since circa 1980, is henceforth going to be done "legally," and the
evidence gathered thereby will be admissible in our "legal" kangaroo
courts.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -
MENWITH HILL: a taste of the future for Winston Smith.....
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ECHELON/echelon.html
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On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:28:58 +0100, "Steve Walker" <...@beeb.net
I'm surprised that you take that view, Todal. He seems to me to be a great
friend and protector of the rich libel-tourists & snake-oil salesmen,
although I admit to basing that view largely upon Private Eye's reporting
and the recent Simon Singh atrocity.
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:20:09 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"Steve Walker" <...@mid.individual.net...
No, he's just a very good judge and lawyer. The newspapers don't like him
because they like to intrude into privacy, so I don't give a stuff about
their whinges.
Now, what was the recent Simon Singh atrocity and can anyone find a proper
note of the judgment? As far as I can see, based on the sketchy reports
available in the Press, Mr Singh criticised the British Chiropractic
Association for promoting treatments he described as "bogus". In a
preliminary ruling Mr Justice Eady said that the wording used by Singh
implied that the BCA was being consciously dishonest. I suppose this must
mean, promoting treatments that it knew or ought to have known would not
offer medical benefit to the patient. Is that not what Mr Singh meant, then?
The fact that Mr Singh now says he didn't mean it, isn't necessarily the
issue. The fact that many sensible people might approve of Mr Singh's
article isn't the issue either.
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On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:41:44 +0100, Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
It was the Singh case that tilted me in the direction I take. That made
me google for past judgments.
>
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:23:49 +0100, Big Les Wade <...@nowhere.com
Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
Agreed. I can't quite work out what is going on in the Singh case. Can
he not challenge Eady's pronouncement to a higher court? It is so
clearly idiotic.
--
Les
Conspiracy theory: A suspicion that officials sometimes mislead the public in
order to protect their own interests.
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:18:02 +0100, Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
Check out the JackofKent blog.
>
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:20:53 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"Big Les Wade" <...@obviously.invalid...
a) Yes he can appeal and the reports said he was doing so
b) If you're going to say it is clearly idiotic, can you support your
argument in some way?
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:35:11 +0100, Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
In message <...@etiqa.co.uk
In the Mosley case, he claimed he was not developing the law when he
clearly was - whether you agree with that development or not, his denial
that that is what he was doing struck me as strange. He was making a
ruling based on something that in the main precedent, the Naomi Campbell
case, had been generally considered to be well beyond the boundary of
the law.
In the Singh case, he ruled that in saying that chiropractic medicine
was bogus, Singh was defaming the governing body. That seems to me to
have a chilling effect on reasonable discussion about the effectiveness
of alternative medical practices. I do not see that interpretation as
being the inevitable meaning of the words used, and therefore I disagree
with his conclusions. I am far from convinced that a justification
and/or fair comment defence was not warranted. The outcome of this case
moreover demonstrates how far from anything remotely reasonable our
defamation law has drifted. The effectiveness of alternative medicine is
clearly an issue that in the public interest should be subject to the
most searching scrutiny and debate, and to say that Singh had in some
way acted unlawfully by making his robust comments was shocking.
I have not considered the relevant law in respect of the current case,
but I don't think it is a development that is helpful for society. I
agree that he has to make decisions on the basis of the law, but
precedent in novel cases usually leaves a fair bit of wriggle room, so I
do not accept that he necessarily had to find in that way. Therefore,
the fact that he chose to find in that way tells us something about his
character and attitudes that I find unattractive, particularly when
taken against the background of the two previous cases.
--
Richard Miller
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:58:51 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"Richard Miller" <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk...
We will have to disagree on that. If you had seen counsel make their closing
submissions in the Mosley case, you'd have seen that the NoW's counsel was
on the ropes, unable to justify the intrusion into privacy without cobbling
together a spurious justification based on a supposed Nazi theme.
To say that a newspaper can video you having sex, or playing sex games, in a
private place, then publish that video and justify it on the basis that you
are a household name, is monstrous.
No, not quite. I expect both sides agreed that Singh was defaming the
governing body and the question was whether it was fair comment/justified.
What he did in his interlocutory ruling was to rule on the meaning of the
words used. He didn't give a decision on fair comment or justification.
Quite so, and the defendant may yet win. But he'll have a tougher task.
I'm shocked that the Guardian was so lax as to allow the comments to be
published in the form that they were.
Ah.
What a pity. That's exactly like saying that a judge who rules that a child
should be taken into care is displaying an unattractive side of his
character.
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:44:41 +0100, Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
In message <...@beeb.net
But they should not have had to justify it, according to the law as it
existed until this decision was handed down. I agree that what they were
doing was pretty shoddy, but they considered, rightly on the basis of
previous precedent, that there was no law to prevent them. The only
reason they had to rely on the dodgy Nazi theme as a justification was
because the Court decided to extend the law into previously uncharted
territory.
Yet until this case, there was nothing in the law that said they were
not entitled to do so, and it was wrong of a Court to invent such a law
out of whole cloth.
--
Richard Miller
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:26:24 +0100, Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
It didn't stop the NotW publishing photos and videos from The Bridge
(kinky club in Birmingham) a few years ago, they claimed that was in the
public interest and there was no "household name" justification. Not
only that but also offering to pay if anyone sent in similar material
for publication.
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On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:53:20 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"Martin" <...@news.zen.co.uk...
I suppose they'd have difficulty getting away with it now.
I really can't see a "public interest" element in revealing the private sex
acts of politicians. I suppose the fact that a politician has visited a
prostitute (would this now be as newsworthy as it was in the days of
Christine Keeler and John Profumo?) might possibly reflect upon his morals
and probity. But actually broadcasting to the world a video showing what he
did and what the prostitute did - how can that intrusion into privacy be to
the benefit of the public? It sells newspapers, that's all it does.
It may seem like brand new law, but the right to privacy is something that
has only developed in recent years - and Eady wasn't going out on a limb (or
"running amok" as he quips) at all. As he is at pains to remind the unwary -
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2008/1777.html
"Although the law of "old-fashioned breach of confidence" has been well
established for many years, and derives historically from equitable
principles, these have been extended in recent years under the stimulus of
the Human Rights Act 1998 and the content of the Convention itself. The law
now affords protection to information in respect of which there is a
reasonable expectation of privacy, even in circumstances where there is no
pre-existing relationship giving rise of itself to an enforceable duty of
confidence. That is because the law is concerned to prevent the violation of
a citizen's autonomy, dignity and self-esteem. It is not simply a matter of
"unaccountable" judges running amok. Parliament enacted the 1998 statute
which requires these values to be acknowledged and enforced by the courts.
In any event, the courts had been increasingly taking them into account
because of the need to interpret domestic law consistently with the United
Kingdom's international obligations. It will be recalled that the United
Kingdom government signed up to the Convention more than 50 years ago".
Of course, if Eady is wrong then the judgment will be appealed,
successfully, to the Court of Appeal. As far as I'm aware, the NoW has not
announced an intention to appeal. They know they were bang to rights. Their
whinging about Eady's judgment is based on hot air, and panders to the
belief that some sexual acts are so horrifying to the quiet spinster ladies
of Cheltenham (heavens above, consensual sadomasochism!!!) that they must be
revealed to the public in all their sordid detail.
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:40:01 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"Martin" <...@news.zen.co.uk...
Mr Singh's article (which was allegedly defamatory) was printed in the
Guardian, which has apparently removed it from its website as a
precautionary measure. Mr Singh's website offers a link to a Russian site
where the entire article can be read. I think this is rather reckless of Mr
Singh, to offer that link.
I suppose it is a bit risky to quote from the article but here goes (and
anyway, the BCA has used the same quote in its briefing note on its web
page):
"The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help
treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear
infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of
evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic
profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments".
Before I had even checked to see whether this was the bit that offended the
BCA, the above paragraph leapt out at me as a piece of reckless journalism.
I think that was a very rash statement for Singh to make. Not a jot of
evidence? He should have asked the BCA to say what evidence they have, and
let that evidence (or absence of evidence) speak for itself. It's not very
different from saying that there is not a jot of evidence that Saddam had
weapons of mass destruction. It calls into question the good faith and
honesty of those who claim they relied on such evidence. In general you can
assume that politicians won't sue when you call them dishonest, because they
don't want to appear to be stifling criticism. But you can't make such an
assumption about other people and organisations.
I'd very much like to see Eady's interlocutory judgment if and when it is
ever quoted in the public domain. To say it is plainly idiotic and illiberal
and unscientific, is to blindly misunderstand and misinterpret the law.
Those of you who are criticising Eady, are as unscientific as the
alternative therapists, perhaps more so.
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:52:29 -0700 (PDT), Jethro <...@hotmail.com
On 17 June, 09:40, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
I believe Private Eye has covered the case in some detail.
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:54:28 +0100, Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
I've not seen it referenced on Dr. Singh's website, it is certainly
referenced by some members of the public who believe Dr. Singh is right.
<big cut - I'll comment on it later :) got to dash
The person you're quoting (I guess it's Jack of Kent re. illiberal) is a
lawyer. If he's obviously wrong it would be nice if you posted to his
blog as to why, it would help everyone. If you do could you kindly post
the link to your post here?
>
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:38:33 +0100, Big Les Wade <...@nowhere.com
The Todal <...@beeb.net
In that case ISTM they have themselves published the defamation (and not
under privilege) and have no cause of action if anyone else repeats it.
He already knows, and so do I. Many of these alternative treatments are
unsupported by what many scientists regard as real evidence - that is,
properly conducted comparative clinical trials.
If you are a scientist who genuinely believes that the only admissible
evidence is DBRCT results - and many do - then it is correct to say that
"there is not a jot of evidence" for these treatments.
I personally don't go that far, but for those who do it is entirely
their own choice and a perfectly legitimate one.
Not necessarily. Many "alternative healers" do genuinely believe in the
value of their treatments. In that case they are not being dishonest,
they just have a different view of what counts as admissible evidence.
Or there is the third possibility, that they are stupid or ignorant,
which is true in many cases too.
No, here you touch on another issue, and you are wrong again. The point
is this: There are and always have been disputes of fact in science.
Sometimes these disputes become extremely acrid and the protagonists say
offensive things about each other - including that their opponents are
being misleading. The whole point of science is that you *must* be
allowed to say things like that, otherwise you cannot challenge false
theories to the point of destruction. If you, a medical researcher,
believe that somebody is making exaggerated claims about a treatment,
you have a right to say so. (If you're a doctor, you probably have a
*duty* to say so.)
There is an obvious public health justification for this and everybody
in medicine agrees with it. It is despicable of the BCA to undermine the
principle.
and elsewhere you wrote
That's where Eady was idiotic. "Bogus" doesn't necessarily imply
dishonesty, it just means the treatment doesn't work. For example my COD
gives three possible meanings: "sham, fictitious, spurious". Singh could
have meant any of these, so suppose he meant "spurious". The same
dictionary gives for "spurious": "1 not genuine, not being what it
purports to be, not proceeding from the pretended source. [the other
alternatives are not relevant here]". So Singh is saying that the
treatments are not what they purport to be, i.e not effective
treatments. Perfectly legitimate in medicine - it's said all the time -
and not at all libellous.
--
Les
Conspiracy theory: A suspicion that officials sometimes mislead the public in
order to protect their own interests.
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:00:32 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"Big Les Wade" <...@obviously.invalid...
Exactly.
This is true, but those who practice "alternative medicine" say that it is
impossible to arrange clinical trials. You may regard this as an implausible
argument. I, too, am a devoted admirer of Ben Goldacre. To sum up the
argument as "bogus treatment" for the benefit of the slow-witted reader is
not as satisfactory as setting out in detail why clinical trials are a
helpful way of assessing the efficacy of a treatment and why you don't find
it convincing that homeopaths and chiropractors and herbalists don't have
clinical trials.
I suppose you could equally say there is not a jot of evidence to support
the belief that the triple vaccine causes autism. Which is to say, not a
jot of evidence that *you* find persuasive.
That, however, isn't what Singh says. Not a jot of evidence, respectable
face, happily promotes bogus treatments.
That is the same as saying that they genuinely believe what they are doing
but they've got the science wrong, which is an acceptable way of putting it.
I hope the BCA loses the court action. They have won only on a preliminary
point, the meaning of the words.
No, you've misunderstood. Again, I daresay the full judgment of Eady would
help to explain the reasoning.
To say "you are offering your patients a bogus treatment" is indeed
defamatory. But it doesn't in itself connote "you are offering a treatment
which you *know* cannot work". That latter inference comes from the
surrounding words "not a jot of evidence" and "respectable face of the
chiropractic profession yet it happily promotes...."
It's the difference between "you are wrong about global warming, here's some
scientific evidence that shows how these temperature changes are cyclical"
(fair comment on a matter of scientific interest) and "there is not a jot of
evidence to support the belief in man-made climate change, and you're a
professor of meteorology yet you happily promote this bogus theory" (which
implies that you are dishonest and probably ought to be sacked).
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:01:42 -0700 (PDT), Webmanager_CritEst <...@critest.com
On Jun 17, 11:00 am, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"That is the same as saying that they genuinely believe what they are
doing but they've got the science wrong, which is an acceptable way of
putting it. "
That IS what Singh was 'saying' (by his reference to his colleague's
meta-analysis), or it is what any reasonable person (i.e rational,
informed and scientific, NOT a lawyer), realise he was 'saying'.
Hence the reaction against Eady's archaic tosh.
Time to repeal all slander and libel laws, with balance, by
'compulsory' right-of-reply, where possible.
WM
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On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:46:04 +0100, Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
In message <...@nowhere.com
This is clearly where Dr Andrew Wakefield went wrong. He should clearly
have just sued for libel anyone who had challenged his claim of a link
to autism. Had he done so, we could have got the immunisation rates
plummeting even further than they have, and even more parents could have
enjoyed the experience of seeing their child suffer a life threatening
illness.
--
Richard Miller
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:39:39 +0100, Big Les Wade <...@nowhere.com
Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
Quite. Wakefield did not sue because he was an ethical medical
researcher who played the game the way everybody in the ethical medical
research community agrees it must be played. Clearly this does not
include the BCA.
That's the fault of the Department of Health, but it is an argument for
another thread.
--
Les
Conspiracy theory: A suspicion that officials sometimes mislead the public in
order to protect their own interests.
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:50:11 -0700 (PDT), Jethro <...@hotmail.com
On 17 June, 22:46, Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.ukwrote:
But as the great Dr. House said ... "tiny coffins are so cute".
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:38:59 +0100, AlanG <...@invalid.net
On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:46:04 +0100, Richard Miller
<...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
IIRC it was not the immunisation he called into question but the use
of a triple injection at one time. There appeared to be no problems
with the single injections except increased cost. So it wasn't
parents or Wakefield at fault but government ministers browbeating
parents into having their children accept a treatment which at the
time had doubts about it. The governement could easily have permitted
single shots for any parent who had doubts.
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:59:54 +0100, Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
There were no doubts about it except in Wakefield's own mind and his
sloppy science.
Why should the government pander to idiots who prefer quackery as
opposed to science? It's as bad as the NHS funding homeopathy, and the
mad-prince opening his mouth advocating it. If ever there was a case for
a republic it's ignorant tossers like Charles who shout their mouth off
when they know sod-all about what they are spouting.
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:37:20 +0100, Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
In message <...@etiqa.co.uk
I say, "Exactly" but unfortunately as a result of the Singh decision,
anyone on the receiving end of such a comment could apparently now say
"Show me the money".
--
Richard Miller
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:20:16 +0100, Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
Hell, it works both ways, when it comes to quackery just show *them* the
money ;) Homeopathy £10/treatment, cost of materials £0.01 - water and
sugar cost nothing.
Dang if I wasn't so honest I'd be rich.
Where can I buy blank pills from :)
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On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:36:54 +0100, Big Les Wade <...@nowhere.com
Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
They have the very great benefit that they do no harm, unlike a great
many pharmaceuticals. Many people alive today wish their mothers had
been prescribed a stupid little quack-pill made of sugar for their
morning sickness, rather than thalidomide.
--
Les
Conspiracy theory: A suspicion that officials sometimes mislead the public in
order to protect their own interests.
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:20:11 +0100, Big Les Wade <...@nowhere.com
Martin <...@etiqa.co.uk
Wakefield published some case reports that suggested a possible
correlation between the triple vaccine and certain types of morbidity.
He inferred that further safety investigations were needed to check for
a real causal link. These investigations were done and showed that the
triple vaccine is probably safe, but they do not retrospectively
invalidate his comments, they merely show that his guess was incorrect.
At the time, the truth about MMR was not known for sure. It is not
quackery to look for possible adverse effects of medication; it's done
all the time. Sometimes, as with thalidomide, the causal link exists;
other times it doesn't.
A reflexive remark.
--
Les
Conspiracy theory: A suspicion that officials sometimes mislead the public in
order to protect their own interests.
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:05:20 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"Big Les Wade" <...@obviously.invalid...
Sorry, but that's bollocks. Your version of science is about as sound as
chiropractic.
Guesses are no bloody use - they are unscientific. Real medicine isn't like
"House" or an Agatha Christie whodunnit. You can't just jump from one guess
to another. And recently there were indications that he misrepresented his
data to support his theories.
Which is why the learned Dr Wakefield is in trouble with his professional
body. Like it or not, he is in the same league as Professor Southall.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683671.ece
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:27:25 +0100, Big Les Wade <...@nowhere.com
The Todal <...@beeb.net
As far as I know you have no professional expertise in scientific
methodology, or even a science degree. So you can't usefully lecture on
the topic here, especially in such naive terms. "Guesses" - tentative
theories based on incomplete evidence - are the most important tools we
have for advancing scientific knowledge.
The people who write for the Sunday Times probably don't know any more
about epidemiological research techniques than you do. I certainly
wouldn't rely on what they say about it.
--
Les
Conspiracy theory: A suspicion that officials sometimes mislead the public in
order to protect their own interests.
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On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:56:54 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"Big Les Wade" <...@obviously.invalid...
It depends who is making the "guesses".
It may be that healthcare is no longer to be entrusted to scientists and
trained doctors, but instead we should rely on the public at large. If most
people rely on homeopathy to treat their cancer, then that should become the
approved treatment. If most people are deeply suspicious of a vaccine we can
confirm it by an opinion poll and use that as sufficient reason to withdraw
the vaccine.
And when you bring your car to a garage to be repaired, they can adopt the
same approach. If the most common fault is a broken fuel pump, that is the
first thing they should replace and they should work their way through a
list of similar "guesses" till they fix your car, and bill you for all the
work they do.
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On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:26:50 +0100, Big Les Wade <...@nowhere.com
The Todal <...@beeb.net
And on what they are based on, and where they are published, and what
they imply if correct. Wakefield's hypothesis satisfied all these
criteria.
False dichotomy; we neither have to entrust all healthcare to scientists
and doctors, nor rely entirely on the public.
It need not become the "approved treatment" of the medical profession,
but the person who is being treated should certainly have the right to
approve it if he chooses.
There certainly isn't much point in offering a vaccine that hardly
anybody will accept.
Sometimes it is necessary to settle for a solution that you personally
think is second best but is at least acceptable to other parties.
However, civil servants always think they know best and everybody else's
view is stupid and can simply be ridden over. That's the mistake the DH
made. Unfortunately the people who suffered were children, not civil
servants. They never suffer the consequences of their arrogance.
Nonsense snipped.
--
Les
Conspiracy theory: A suspicion that officials sometimes mislead the public in
order to protect their own interests.
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On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:16:20 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"Big Les Wade" <...@obviously.invalid...
Everyone accepted it for years and it did a huge amount of good. Investing
in public health (such as immunisation) delivers *far* better value for
money than investing in expensive drugs to deliver an extra year of life if
you have cancer, or investing in new and better medical equipment.
The crisis over MMR was pure hysteria (as irrational in its nature as any
form of hysteria), whipped up by an ignorant press who responded to
Wakefield's scare story - a scare story that wasn't a proper study, merely a
report of what he thought he'd seen in clinical practice, which he hadn't
analysed properly.
Quite simply, parents of young children became convinced that if they
allowed their child to have the MMR vaccine, there was a significant risk
that the child would become autistic - a risk that somehow outweighed the
benefits of the vaccine. No parent can live with the guilt of taking a
decision that might harm their child. The same effect could be achieved by a
Press campaign telling parents "if you let your child do rugby in school,
there is a significant risk that he will end up in a wheelchair". Or on a
more basic level "the gap in standards between state education and private
education is such that if you don't get your child into a private school, he
will never be able to compete with other people of his age in the job
market". Say it quietly and it has only a slight effect - but the more you
say it and the more widely the message is publicised, the more damage is
done.
People like you (with the attitude you display) helped to manufacture the
hysteria because you have an ingrained belief that the medical establishment
and the government is always trying to cover up secrets and scandals and
that every time a maverick doctor or a journalist emerges from obscurity
claiming to be the Messiah, we should all follow him "because that's how
scientific progress is made".
After all, it happened with thalidomide. That saintly Dr McBride exposed
the scandal of birth deformities. And we know what happened to him in the
end.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13718620.800-thalidomide-hero-found-guilt y-of-scientific-fraud-.html
Now that you can see how nonsensical your opinion is, please feel free to
change your mind. You don't even have to confess to doing so. Stop taking
the homeopathic sugar pills that the Press offers you, because they are bad
for your health.
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:11:06 +0100, AlanG <...@invalid.net
On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:59:54 +0100, Martin <...@etiqa.co.ukwrote:
There were plenty of doubts about it both among parents and some
medical professionals.
History is littered with bad science leant on by governments. The drug
laws are an obvious example and everyone remembers thalidomide or the
secrecy over asbestos. There is an understandable lack of trust in
government claims.
No. It's governments who continue to deny there is a problem without
proof to the contrary who undermine their argument. The fact is that
autism exists and someone proposed a link between it and the MMR
vaccine. It took years before there was a proper study that showed he
was wrong. IMO that should have been done immediately. And meanwhile
they should have reverted to the single vaccine.
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:40:04 +0100, Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
In message <...@invalid.net
So your argument is that because of a false hypothesis, you, I and every
other taxpayer should have dipped into our pockets in order to placate
those who fell for the false claim.
Sorry, that does not wash with me at all.
--
Richard Miller
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On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:29:56 GMT, agnon <...@examle.com
...And that the population should be at a greater risk of serious
illness, with the various economic consequences of such? (Treatment,
reduced economic activity of brain-damaged / blinded / etc children)
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On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:42:24 +0100, Big Les Wade <...@nowhere.com
Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
That's because you're not thinking it through. The "claim" (actually a
tentative hypothesis cautiously expressed) was not then known to be
false. From what was known at the time, it could have been correct; and
that was already a good reason for offering single vaccines, since they
might have protected public health.
Later, when the panic spread and vaccination rates fell sharply, there
was an even better reason for offering single vaccines - namely that it
would *definitely* have helped protect public health, by raising
vaccination rates. It is to DH's eternal shame that they didn't do that.
--
Les
Conspiracy theory: A suspicion that officials sometimes mislead the public in
order to protect their own interests.
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On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:04:43 +0100, AlanG <...@invalid.net
On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:42:24 +0100, Big Les Wade <...@nowhere.comwrote:
I didn't see Richard's reply but you have summed up the situation very
well
Indeed. It wasn't just the general tabloid reading public who were
concerned. I know several health professionals who thought the risk
worrying. There should at least have been a study instead of thrusting
the government stance down everybody's throats.
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On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:49:06 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"AlanG" <...@4ax.com...
Well, he has summed up the approach of Dr Wakefield and his supporters very
well. He hasn't summed up the situation very well at all.
The situation being that Dr Wakefield's study was deeply flawed, and it
wasn't even a proper scientific paper at all. To quote Wakefield and his
co-authors: "We cannot accept that the knowledge that affected children were
later to pursue litigation, following their clinical referral and
investigation, influenced the content or tone of the 1998 paper which was a
description of a possible new syndrome in the classical mode. We emphasise
that this was not a scientific paper but a clinical report".
So, is that a good reason for withdrawing the combined vaccine and issuing
single vaccines instead, at enormous cost to the public purse?
Absolutely-bloody-not! It makes sense only if you have no understanding of
the cost of healthcare in this country and you assume that whenever anyone
shows any side effect from any drug it is a simple matter to withdraw that
drug and use a different one.
Several health professionals were worried, yes. They were waiting for
guidance from the NHS that was extremely slow in coming. They couldn't be
expected to replicate all the research for themselves.
Here is a Lancet editorial from Feb 2002
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(02)07826-1/fullt ext
Is the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine safe? Yes, acceptably so,
is the only conclusion possible to reach in the face of the totality of the
epidemiological evidence. There are no substantiated data to suggest that
the MMR vaccine causes autism, enterocolitis, or the syndrome first
described by Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues in The Lancet in 1998. New
research from some of the same authors as the 1998 Lancet report, in
conjunction with a Dublin group led by Prof John O'Leary, has been published
early online in Molecular Pathology. Fragments of the measles virus genome
are reported in 75 of 91 children with ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia,
enterocolitis, and developmental disorder, compared with five of 70 control
children. But, crucially, these data do not support any link to the MMR
vaccine, since no vaccine-specific strain data are presented for measles,
mumps, or rubella. This latest twist has prompted Prof John Walker-Smith to
end his silence since the publication of the first 1998 paper, of which he
was the senior author. In this week's Correspondence columns (see page 705),
Walker-Smith endorses the use of MMR, and calls for an independent research
agenda into the causes of the bowel and behavioural disorders in this small
and select group of children.
Sadly, a balanced scientific debate has given way to personal attacks and
unreasoned demands for single vaccines. Public faith in the MMR vaccine has
been eroded, leading to falls in its uptake and now outbreaks of measles in
the UK. Unless public opinion swiftly changes, measles, mumps, and rubella
cases will become commonplace, with their resultant deaths and sometimes
serious morbidity, mirroring the pertussis vaccine scare in the 1970s.
Doctors need to present all of the evidence to parents to allow them to make
informed decisions, and that evidence comes down in favour of MMR.
But the debate also needs to move beyond the safety of MMR. What of autism
and the burden it brings to children and parents? As Walker-Smith
highlights, these children are ill-served by the current fear that MMR
causes autism. The UK Department of Health announced last week that 25
million was to be given to the Medical Research Council to support autism
research, following publication of the MRC's report on autism in December,
2001, which documents that six per 1000 children under 8 have an
autism-spectrum disorder. Whether the actual number of cases is increasing
or whether this high prevalence is due to increased awareness will be an
important area for future research.
What is clear from the MRC report is just how much is unknown about the
physical and psychological abnormalities that may underlie autism, let alone
the possible causes. Functional brain-imaging studies have shown
underactivation in areas associated with planning and control of complex
actions, and in areas linked with processing socioemotional information.
Brain neurotransmitter abnormalities have been reported. Psychological
theories focus on social understanding, control of behaviour, and ability to
focus on detail, but there are large gaps between theory and practice. A
genetic component to autism-spectrum disorders is established, and the
search for autism-susceptibility genes is underway. But the complexity of
the autism-behavioural phenotype and the lack of knowledge about the
developmental processes that are disrupted in autism are hampering molecular
research. In addition to infections, prenatal exposure to drugs, perinatal
complications, and diet have all been suggested as environmental triggers of
autism, but independent replication will be critical in establishing whether
any of these factors is relevant.
In 1998 in The Lancet, calling for an effective pharmacovigilance system for
detecting vaccine-associated adverse events, Robert Chen and Frank DeStefano
said "Without such a system, vaccine-safety concerns such as that reported
by Wakefield and colleagues may snowball into societal tragedies when the
media and the public confuse association with causality and shun
immunisation". Unfortunately, this is exactly what has happened with MMR. In
addition to such a system, a clear research agenda into the causes,
developmental abnormalities, and treatments of the autism-spectrum disorders
is needed.
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On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:01:05 +0100, AlanG <...@invalid.net
On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:49:06 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.netwrote:
No it was a case for investigating bloody quickly. That this didn't
happen just lent credence to the rumour mill. Civil servants tell
lies. We know this from any study of history. See asbestos and Calder
Hall leaks. Two entirely differentg coverups
They didn't bother investigating.
4 years later
That's correct. Informed decisions. Decisions based on proven
scientific tests not government scientists say it's okay cos we told
you it was okay. People have heard of asbestos and prozac.
Future research! Hooray.
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On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:29:08 +0100, "The Todal" <...@beeb.net
"AlanG" <...@4ax.com...
Investigating bloody quickly? If you mean carrying out double-blind or
triple-blind trials comparing MMR with a placebo or with separate
injections, that would have taken years.
If you mean doing a peer-reviewed analysis of Wakefield's report and
comparing it with evidence from other sources and coming to the conclusion
that Wakefield was talking shit, that might have been possible within weeks
or months. But nobody would have trusted such an opinion because everyone
would have said it's the establishment trying to cover up.
Was there a cover-up over asbestos? I'm not sure there was. The risks
were known from the 1930s but industry deluded itself that the risk was
associated with the manufacture of asbestos, not other forms of exposure to
asbestos. I doubt if civil servants had anything to do with it - government
chose not to legislate, maybe from inertia or a reluctance to impose too
much regulation (nowadays everyone whinges about too many health and safety
rules) and you can probably blame the politicians and the unions for failing
to push it through.
I was glad to learn today that changing your brake shoes and blowing the
asbestos dust out of your brake drums, gives rise to only negligible risk.
The heat in a brake drum apparently converts the asbestos fibres to
amorphous silicates. I hope the same applies on the London Underground. But
maybe one day someone will say that it's a cover-up and it's all dangerous.
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