oops...hit that send button too fast...


"abacus" wrote in message
m...
"Mark Probert-February 23, 2004" Mark
wrote in message . net...

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...ing%20Standard


The Government claims Dr Andrew Wakefield had a conflict of interest
when he
produced a study suggesting a link between the vaccine and autism,
because
he was paid £55,000 by lawyers to investigate whether MMR was safe.

£55,000= around $75,000 just for starters....

Where is the outrage of the anti-vacs? They have none! They will,
instead,
point out that the pro-vacs also have conflicts. However, Wakefield kept
this gem a secret....

I'm not sure exactly what the problem here is.

I will write slowly, as you seemed to have missed my point....

The anti-vac liars, John Scudamore of the whale.to website being the most
notorious, along with Roger, et al, have bleated and brayed a cacophony of
noise whenever anyone who is pro-vaccine, i.e., pro-child health, has any
form of an apparent conflict of interest, even though they may have
disclosed it.

These same folks have held Wakefield, et al, up as saints, pure as the
driven snow...to be beleived without question...

Now, along came this story about how Wakefield was financed by a group of
lawyers who stood to make some evil money from the outcome of the class
action suit they brought...

And, the anti-vac lairs are fuming and fussing, whining and whinneying, that
it just ain't right. Wakefield is a saint, and the money di dnot affect the
outcome...

Horse****.

Their hero was even more conflicted since he was paid for the initial study,
and stood to be paid for his testimony.

And they just cannot stand it.

I hope I am clear.

Is it that he is accepting funding for his research? Do you expect
him to do it for free?

Of course not. Just like I do not expect other researchers to do it for
free. I am merely commenting on the duplicity of the anti-vac liars and
others.

Simply accepting funding for research does
not constitute a conflict of interest.

True. But, sometimes, the source of said funds says a lot. Here, it was the
lawyers who stood to make gadzillions of pounds if he found a link. He then
goes on to testify for more gadzillions of pounds.

Conflict of interest occurs
when one is accepting funding from different sources with different
and potentially conflicting goals.

OK, then he if does not have a conflict of interest he is nothing mor ethan
a medical whore.

Was he hiding the source of his funding?

Seems to be so. It is just being revealed now, years after his study was
first published.

That would be a problem, but
I'm not clear about whether he was not disclosing the source of his
funding or whether it simply was not given adequate acknowledgement by
those who were reporting his results.

Nice weasel. Pro-vaccine researchers are held to this high standard by the
anti-vac liars. Turnabout...

If Wakefield did, as you claim,
keep this "secret" then outrage would be appropriate (a list of
funding sources should accompany research results) and it would make
his results suspect, but it doesn't, by itself, constitute a conflict
of interest. It depends on what other work he was accepting payment
for.

Not really. Th ebuyers of his research stood to make money based on his
outcome, and he stood to make more.

Is he sitting on vaccine policy-making committees?

There are small miracles.

Then there is a
conflict of interest. Even so, that alone is not necessarily a serious
problem. If he was keeping the funding source 'secret', then it is.
But as long as the issue is on the table and everyone is aware of the
potential bias, the conflict of interest is not an insurmountable
problem.

Sometimes, it is. Here, with this revalation, his value as an expert witness
is shot.

Is he sitting on vaccine policy-making committees composed primarily
or entirely of people with the same bias as he has? This would be a
serious problem and make all decisions put forth by such a committee
suspect. That sort of situation should and does cause outrage.

Check out his history, as you seem not to know about him.

For more examples of such situations (not about vaccines though) in
the U.S. and the seriousness and extent of the problem, I suggest you
check out the report on "Scientific Integrity in Policymaking" put out
earlier this week by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Their entire
report in online at
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/index.html