How low will Andrew Wakefield supporters go in protecting the discredited and disgraced doctor whose shoddy and biased research sparked an antivaccination hysteria that led to falling vaccination rates in the U.K. and the subsequent return of measles and mumps?
Yes, it's a Wakefield apologist website. It misrepresents the science; whines about the hearings in the U.K. looking at Wakefield's dubious science, unreported conflicts of interest, and parrots the antivaccination lies that the MMR vaccine and thimerosal on vaccines causse autism.
In actuality, the purveyors of this minsinformation-packed website should be "crying shame" about their own woo-packed website.
Does anyone else think that they are working up a future excuse for why the Autism Omnibus might go awry?
I can't work out the correct future conditionals but should this be interpreted as a belief that they would obtain their desired rulings and verdicts at the Autism Omnibus hearings if Wakefield were accepted as an expert witness??? But, if the GMC finds against him, this will somehow mean that he can't testify?
You'll find that JABS at www.jabs.org.uk is just as bad. They worship St Wakefield and buy any drivel from the anti-MMR brigade. The usual suspects all make an appearance. And the usual nonsense (e.g. vaccines don't work, reduction of infectious diseases is due to better nutrition and sanitation).
Given that there is a very significant inherited component in autistic spectrum disorders, I wonder whether the single-minded pursuit of woo drivel by some relatives of ASD kids is partly due them having a touch of ASDness?
I will admit that I was puzzled by the failure to call St. Andy (Wakefield) as a plaintiff's witness in the Omnibus Proceedings - not because I thought that he would have any credibility on cross-examination, but because I thought that he was their "Golden Boy".
Considering who they did call as witnesses, their choice to omit Wakefield is curious. Could it be that he didn't want to suffer a humiliation immediately prior to facing the GMC? I'm not familiar with GMC disciplinary hearings, but what I've heard so far suggests that they would not be as harsh as the excoriating cross-examination Wakefield would have endured in the Omnibus Proceedings.
Or perhaps the plaintiffs' lawyers were waiting to see how Wakefield fares in front of the GMC before deciding to call him in a later "test case" for MMR vaccine alone.
Clearly, Dr. Wakefield is in deep denial about the state of the data supporting his claims. It should come as no surprise that his devotees are also in denial.
Prometheus
Is anyone reporting/commenting on the Wakefield GMC hearing as Autism Diva and certain others did during the Cedillo hearing? I'm looking for something a bit more factual than the "everyone on our side is brilliant and eloquent and everyone on their side is stupid, clumsy and short" drivel generated by the criminal attorney at the CryShame website. Apparently Brian Deer is attending, but I can't find anything he has written about the proceedings.
Centipede Sam - I have heard it from one who is much more an expert on autism than I that your idea is very likely at work. Perseveration, they call it.