MMR Scare. The Swan Song.

As we know Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who was the driving force for the now infamous Lancet paper that looked at a dozen case studies of the children of parents who believed that their kids who showed varying degrees of autistic spectra, had been afflicted by bowel problems caused by the MMR vaccine. I'll give a few details of what happened, as a much more in depth, and knowable summary, that I could never produce on the topic, has been done by the wonderful Dr. Ben Goldacre of "Bad Science", which can be found on this link. The case study designed to look for a link between two isolated things (not to see if A caused B. A point often overlooked by the so-called "MMR sceptics") and the report concluded that:


"We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described,"


However the authors did say in the article that they believed thier was a possible link between MMR and the bowel problems and autism. That is LINK, not a causation. But from this point onwards, possibly the mother of all health scares in the last 30 years was unleashed. A health scare that had next to nothing to justify the furore that eventually ensued.


In an ideal world, Wakefields team should have published their work, the BMC should have taken one look at it, told them it was parp, and to actually rely on the bricks of scientific research, rather than the straw of anecdote, and a personal hunch. But no! - This is the real world. Wakefield held a press conference, where he said (and this is the smoking gun for the anti-MMR camp.) that he had doubts about the MMR (fair enough. More research before saying that to the media though.) vaccine, and that he believed that single vaccines should be used instead. And that is the clincher. HE SIMPLY HAD NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS TO JUSTIFY THAT CLAIM. THEIR IS A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A POSSIBLE LINK, AND A PROVEN ONE. It was; for any intent and purpose -an opinion, just that. He wasn't; as some have claimed -a martyr, or Galileo figure, standing up to the soulless minions of scientific orthodoxy. He was a man with an opinion. And he should have expressed that more. But by then it all kicked off in the press. The numbers of children who had been vaccinated dropped from 92% in the year before the press conference to 79% in 1998. Some figures put the vaccination levels at as low as 60%. Confirmed cases of increased levels measles were reported, and two infant deaths ascribed to measles as well. In the media storm, it was overlooked that subsequent research had failed to reproduce the link. 13 of the authors of the paper had disowned it's findings. Much larger studies in Japan and Finland failed to show any correlation between MMR vaccines and increased levels of autism. Nor did later findings by the GMC about Wakefields conduct in his "research" do much to dent his "martyr" status in some sections of the press. You know boring stuff like:


*Performed unnecessary and painful tests on children without proper consent. Extracting spinal cord fluid from Lumbar puncture, and invasive bowel and colon examinations without any surgical need to do so.


*Paying young children at a birthday party £5 a time for samples of their blood.


*He had not disclosed that he had received money from solicitors to fund studies to confirm the fears of parents who believed that their children had been harmed by the vaccine, and had vested interests in those funding MMR alternatives.

This should have been a cautionary tale of a rogue doctor who told all and sundry that they should not use a vaccine, knowing that he had no evidence to back up his warning. And what was worse was that he had performed invasive surgery on children under false pretences at times, and appears to have done so to promote a rival vaccine. There are few things more he could have done to have broken every standing rule of his profession. So no folks he ain't a martyr. No one in any profession would (and should) have walked away scott free.

It is hard to disagree with Ben Goldacre when he says that Wakefield isn't solely responsible for this whole debacle. It is regrettable that those in the media who went along with this scare (whether through scientific illiteracy or cynicism without any evidence to back it up.) will likely walk away from the whole affair without the full role of their guilt in perpetuating the scare being made apparent. Wakefield may have set the ball rolling, but those in the media from the BBC to (especially) the Mail, who took this stuff at face value without checking its accuracy. I'm sure Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips, the two pied pipers of this pap, slapped themselves on the back in how polemic and dangerous they were being in standing up to those science bullies. Perhaps they should have done the research into the topic (medical affairs tend to be quite important. Especially when childhood health care is concerned. Objective analysis doesn't count for a whole lot to many parents, in regards to their young kids.) before nailing their colours to the mast. I don't want to sound pedantic, but shouldn't someone have pointed out to the likes of Fiona Phillips, Jenny Mccarthy, Jim Carrey, Carol Vorderman and Lynda Lee Potter that there is an important distinction between the scientific method, and having "a bit of a bad feeling" or "I'm a Mum, I know whats good for my kids" about analysing the MMR vaccines safety. I don't blame the parents [who believe MMR vacines were the cause] of autistic kids. It's very easy to believe that their child's affliction had a root cause other than blind bad luck. The delivery of the injection at the age when symptoms of autism would start to manifest, injection or not, can seem to provide a post hoc explanation for their autism, and worse - and perhaps why the MMR thing was so emotive, because the parents feel that they are to blame for their child's autism, in allowing the triple vaccination, in spite of objective evidence. This can explain comments like this:

"I saw my son deteriorate before my eyes after MMR in 1989. No one will ever convince his father and I that the MMR was not to blame for his on-going problems and, remember. when a child is disabled in effect the whole family is disabled as everyone's lives are affected for the worse. Dr. Wakefield deserves praise for his efforts."

This heartfelt comment exemplifies why, I think; Wakefield got his martyr status in some circles. Without the objective evidence of the MMR link to autism, parents who unconsciously (wrongly) blame themselves for their child's disability, rather than just plain bad luck, can transfer this feeling to anger towards "evil pharma", and a "medical cover up" that hid the dangers of the vaccine. The media cheerleaders of Wakefield were guilty (IMO) of compounding these parents misery, by pushing this story. We needed perhaps more salient medical experts pointing out that the comments above whist heartrending, are based on grief and emotion, not any scientific validity, or merit. The importance of collective herd immunity in cutting childhood diseases and the dangers to unborn by the measles infection should have been more vocal at the time. Especially in this more cynical age, where these kind of large projects are seen as by their very definition, dodginess embodied.

Fortunately the affair is over for now. I don't think Wakefields disgrace will dent his fully converted hard core following, but I doubt their ranks will swell much more, after the full extent of his malpractice is laid bare. I also expect his friends in the media will see this as the next "Gallileos retraction" before the orthodoxy, if they cover the outcome of it. The uptake of MMR vaccines is rising again to pre-scare levels, and although the deaths of the kids was terribly tragic, we are fortunate it was not higher. But this affair lays bare the dangerous levels of scientific illiteracy in society at large, and the extent that objective evidence is held in contempt, vis a vis emotive analysis. It highlights that baseless scares could manifest again, and next time the effects could be far worse, to a society that doesn't have the facts at hand.