Scientist Fakes Research, Blames Messenger When Caught [Andy]

Despite the awesomeness that is the House GOP's two-page Obamacare repeal bill, the best news in healthcare this week was that the FRAUD stamp was firmly (and hopefully finally) applied to the bogus “Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) Vaccine = Autism in a Vial™” theory.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield's 1998 report in the journal Lancet purporting to show a link between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella "was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud," says Dr. Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, in an editorial published Tuesday. The editorial accompanies the first of three reports by British investigative journalist Brian Deer that document how Wakefield manipulated data in his attempts to prove something that he "knew" before he started his research.

Peer-reviewed "research" supporting a foregone conclusion published in a leading science journal? Research no one else can independently replicate and arrive at the same result? All of this seems awfully familiar.

I have a child who is severely affected by autism, and our blogger-in-arms Eddiebear over at DPUD did the best job of capturing my true sentiments about Wakefield that I've seen.

But this is a larger issue than just autism. It is yet another example of the same anti-progress, anti-technology mindset that applies to manmade global warming, DDT, genetically modified foods and the like. And like the (unintended?) consequences of these other issues, the autism vaccine hoax has had all-too predictable results.

Measles is now endemic in England and Wales. California recently suffered a whooping cough outbreak that sickened 7,800 people and killed 10 babies. As Paul Offit, the chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and one of the few who stood up against the autism scare, writes in his new book "Deadly Choices," the victims of this "war on science" are children.

Offit is right. There is a "war on science" and it is being conducted in the open by the left right out of its playbook. The MFM can't hide from the Wakefield study now, so they have no choice but to criticize it. When it was first published though, they ran scare story after scare story about it.

Like any good member of the Hollywood left, Jenny McCarthy jumped in and got a little extension on her 15 minutes of fame and Oprah "He's The One" Winfrey was all too willing to help her. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., idiot Huffpo bloggers and other usual lefty suspects piled on.

And of course anyone who dared suggest that the science was flawed or that more research was needed was attacked ad hominem and accused of being a shill of Big Oil Pharma.

Way back when President Obama still gave speeches that people listened to, he said

We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its costs.

We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.

What he really meant was that we'd further dumb down education and students' critical thinking skills so they'll believe we're impervious to disease and that we can power our modern society with unicorn farts and taxes on millionaires and billionaires.

In the 17th century, Thomas Hobbes described the life of man in his natural state as "nasty, brutish and short." The left, with every stupid idea and policy they advocate, is bound and determined to take us back there.

posted by Open Blogger at 10:45 AM

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