Wakefield Speaks – But Why Is Anybody Still Listening?
For some reason, Newsweek decided to ask the discredited researcher Andrew Wakefield for his views in the wake of a measles outbreak. To be fair, they’ve done their research and they do present the important facts (for example the retraction of his fraudulent paper). But: we all know what he’ll say (the same as he did last time there was an outbreak) and we all know how much weight we can give the word of a man who’s chiefly known for his misconduct. Read the rest of this entry »
Children’s Immunisation Centre’s Advertising: Misleading And Unsubstantiated
In August 2012, I wrote about an ASA judgement on a complaint I’d submitted about Richard Halvorsen’s Babyjabs clinic. A new adjudication on a different website’s marketing of single vaccines is now available on the ASA website. The ASA received six complaints and investigated seven issues, all of which were upheld. Read the rest of this entry »
WDDTY: How To Misunderstand A Paper
In an article on MMR and measles in the June issue of What Doctors Don’t Tell You (WDDTY), Bryan Hubbard reports on the DeStefano et al paper that found no association between autism and the number of antigens children receive from vaccination. That is what the paper actually found. What Hubbard reports is something quite different. I have no idea how Mr Hubbard manages to get it so wrong. I’d have thought pretty much anyone would be able to figure out what the researchers studied, but apparently not.
Now, I’m no expert – far from it – but I think even an ignorant layman like me can work out what research question the authors were investigating. Read the rest of this entry »
The Anti-Vaccine Movement: A Terrible Track Record
Anti-vaccinationists have made a wide range of claims about the dangers of vaccines. In spite of the fact that they have generally had neither data nor a plausible mechanism for the claimed effect, several of their claims have been investigated by researchers.
As it turns out, the anti-vaccinationists are remarkably consistent. Time and time again, they are shown to be wrong. I’m not sure how many times a group needs to be wrong before people stop seeing them as credible. Perhaps people need to be reminded of how many times this group has been wrong? Read the rest of this entry »
Sue Reid on MMR in the Daily Mail
The Daily Mail recently published a new article on MMR and autism. I was unhappy with the piece and had a conversation by email with the journalist, in which I set out my concerns. Read the rest of this entry »
The Breakspear Hospital and Jean Monro v the ASA and the GMC
In October 2011, I wrote that the Breakspear hospital was offering chelation therapy for coronary and cerebrovascular disease, CFS, autism, and for “preventative medicine” and “anti-ageing”. The page on chelation that I linked to now redirects to a page on treatments that does not mention chelation. Read the rest of this entry »
PCC Upholds Daily Mail’s Right To Distort
Recently, I wrote about the zombie Daily Mail article on MMR. I made a complaint to the PCC about the article in question, and have now received notice of their decision. Read the rest of this entry »
What’s Wrong With The Breakspear Hospital?
Private hospital, The Breakspear, offer several medical products and services. Some of which look like they may be of dubious value. Read the rest of this entry »
Papers for Skeptics
I’m sure everyone has favourite research articles (please tell me it’s not just me). I thought I’d share some of mine. Most are available as free full text, but there are a few where I link to an abstract. Some links will open in PDF, but I’ve tried to make these obvious in the post. I think I’ve saved copies of each paper where full text was available, so if a link to the full text of a paper dies and you can’t get hold of it elsewhere do feel free to email me or leave a comment below and ask for a copy. Read the rest of this entry »
Anti-vaccinationists: Competing Interests and Conspiracy Theories
I’ve written before about the anti-vaccination lobbyists and their obsession with competing interests. John Stone’s big discovery was apparently that Dr Evan Harris’s father was once on a committee. Competing interests by proxy are hardly notable, but anti-vaxxers have sometimes failed harder than that in their conspiracy theorising. Read the rest of this entry »
Stuff And Nonsense 