Science
The Lancet retracts article, conspiracy against anti-vaxxers
That headline, of course, is a joke, but I’m sure some anti-vaccination advocates will see it as a conspiracy.
I am referring, of course, to news that The Lancet, a prominent British medical journal, retracted a 1998 article by Dr. Andrew Wakefield erroneously suggesting a potential link between autism, and the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine
They retracted that article. A comment on their website:
Following the judgment of the UK General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Panel on Jan 28, 2010, it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation. In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were “consecutively referred” and that investigations were “approved” by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record. [Link]
And while I haven’t read anything yet about it being a pan-government conspiracy to keep on giving vaccines to our children, Dr. Wakefield is already being martyrized. Good ol’ David Kirby at the Huffington Post says that this retraction doesn’t change anything:
I believe that the public lynching and shaming of Dr. Wakefield is unwarranted and overwrought, and that history will ultimately judge who was right and who was wrong about proposing a possible association between vaccination and regressive autistic spectrum disorder (ASD).
Wakefield’s critics can condemn, retract, decry and de-license all they want, but that does nothing to stop or alter the march of science, which has come a long way over the past 12 years, and especially in the last year or two. The evidence that autism is increasing at alarming rates, and that some thing (or things) in our environment is wreaking havoc on a vulnerable one-percent of all US children is now so irrefutable that, finally, the federal government is climbing aboard the environmental research bandwagon – way late, but better than never. [Link]
Have you heard any crazies talk about conspiracies yet? I think it’s just a matter of time.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by an individual contributor to this blog are not necessarily shared by all members of FreeThought Fort Wayne. That is what makes this organization so interesting. Commenters on the FreeThought Fort Wayne blog are expected to abide by our comment policy. About the author: Andy Welfle is a marketing professional in a non-profit arts organization by day, and a net junkie, an Apple fanboy, and a freethinker by night. Follow him on twitter: twitter.com/awelfle. | Read more from this author
The The Lancet retracts article, conspiracy against anti-vaxxers by Andy Welfle, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tags: anti-vaxxer, autisim, current events, medicine, news, Science, vaccination debate, vaccine denial, vaccines Discussion
4 comments for “The Lancet retracts article, conspiracy against anti-vaxxers”
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The problem is that we’ve kicked the education system to the curb for so many decades now that the average American doesn’t understand what “science” or “theories” really are anymore.
They can claim that his research was scientific all they want, but the sheer fact of the matter is that there is a very specific way to do science and if you don’t follow those basic practices its no more science than me waking up one morning and proclaiming that the Earth is flat.
The other issue is that you can’t argue with science, and science doesn’t lend itself to a human centric viewpoint. In other words, its not going to give you nice pretty answers all the time that you want to hear. People don’t like to feel like they aren’t in control, so they have to blame something.
I suspect that in 400 years, humans will be looking back on this time the same way we look back on the inquisition or the Salem witch trials. That is, if we survive.
On Monday I heard there is a ridiculous conspiracy theory that giving children the H1N1 vaccine will make them sterile. Where does this crap come from? How can people be so incredibly gullible?
I had such high hopes for Arianna Huffington. I realize none of us are 100% rational. Part of human nature is irrationality; which isn’t all bad. One of my favorite lines of all time is from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where Gene Wilder sings “A little nonsense now and then is welcomed by the wisest men”.
But I’ve come to expect that people that call themselves skeptics or progressives would take the time and do the research to realize some of the more obvious and important errors that they are making. I suppose this is easier said than done if one does not know what one is ignorant of, but Arianna and people like Bill Maher are surrounded by intellectuals that almost have a duty to point these things out to them. I chalk it up to their independence and self-confidence. Either way, it is still annoying if not embarrassing to see someone so otherwise intelligent and capable fall prey to such fallacious reasoning.
Wakefield will compare himself to Galileo in 5, 4, 3…