Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I'd like to be as optimistic as you are about the latest follow-up on Wakefield's fraud, but see this research-citing blog post by a physician:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=2962

"None of this mattered. Andrew Wakefield still enjoys a cult of personality among the anti-vaccine crowd that no revelation seems able to dislodge, even the revelation that at the time he was both in the pay of trial lawyers and working on his study, Andrew Wakefield was also applying for a patent for a rival measles vaccine. Indeed, the anti-vaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism bestowed upon him last year its 'Galileo Award' as the 'persecuted' scientist supposedly fighting for truth, justice, and anti-vaccinationism against the pharma-funded or brainwashed minions of the 'Church of the Immaculate Vaccination.' In the meantime, MMR uptake rates in the U.K. have plummeted over the last decade, far below the level needed for herd immunity, to the point where, last year the Health Protection Agency declared measles to be once again endemic in the U.K., 14 years after the local transmission of measles had been halted."

See also this subthread here on HN

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1053644

and its comments on the same blog post from Science-Based Medicine.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: