19.06.2006

Kevin Leitch kindly allowed me to mirror his Open Letter to Andrew Wakefield, who is responsible for science fraud, which already cost the life of at least one child.

Original URL, in Brian Leitch's Weblog: http://www.kevinleitch.co.uk/wp/?p=354

Kevin Leitch hat mir freundlicherweise die Wiedergabe seinen Offenen Briefes an Andrew Wakefield erlaubt. Wakefield hat aus Habgier Wissenschaftsbetrug begangen, der inzwischen mindestens ein Kind das Leben gekostet hat.

Original-URL, im Weblog von Brian Leitch: http://www.kevinleitch.co.uk/wp/?p=354

Aribert Deckers

[QUOTE]

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Kevin Leitch:

Open Letter To Andrew Wakefield

Posted Tue 4th April 2006

Dear Mr Wakefield,

Following your announcement of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, uptake rates of this vaccine in the UK have fallen to amongst the lowest in Europe:
Take-up rates of the jab dropped throughout the UK, down to less than 70% in some areas, after a small-scale study published in The Lancet in 1998 by Dr Andrew Wakefield suggested a link to autism.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4801532.stm

In 2004, mumps cases in the England and Wales rose from 4,204 in 2003 to 16,436 in 2004, nearly a four-fold increase. And in the first month of 2005, there were nearly 5,000 cases. Most were among young adults born before 1988 and who would, therefore, not have been offered MMR as a child. In the second paper, Dr Ravindra Gupta, from London's Guy's and St Thomas', working with colleagues from King's College London, found cases have also occurring in very young children who would have been eligible for the MMR - measles, mumps and rubella - vaccine. Dr Gupta (...) said uptake of MMR among two-year-olds in the UK fell from around 92% in early 1995 to around 80% in 2003/4.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4539887.stm

In October 2004, experts predicted that due to falling vaccination uptake, the UK would start to suffer from "small outbreaks": The medical newspaper Pulse has warned that there could be a measles epidemic this winter on a scale last seen in the 1960s. It said that lowering levels of immunity meant as many as 12% of children and 20% of adults could be hospitalised if infected by measles.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3708318.stm

And now, this year, 18 months after this warning, we have the UK's first measles induced fatality in 14 years.
"The 13-year-old who died last month lived in a travellers' community. It is thought that he had a weakened immune system; he was being treated for a lung condition. The boy died of an infection of the central nervous system caused by a reaction to the measles virus. The Health Protection Agency described his death as shocking."
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-2116018,00.html

The Times also says that of the 72 reported measles cases last month, 9 required hospitalisation - this tallies almost exactly with the 2004 prediction of a hospitalisation rate of 12%.

I have a few questions for you Mr Wakefield.

Do you accept that there is a strong causative correlation between the falling MMR vaccine uptake and the rise in both mumps and measles? If you do not, could you please explain why not. If you do could you please explain what you feel is your role in these matters.

Is it true that, as reported by Brian Deer (http://briandeer.com/wakefield/lancet-kids.htm) in the Times and in the Channel 4 current affairs programme "Dispatches", that you received up to 55000 Pound Sterling to find scientific evidence of a link between MMR and autism and that you did not disclose you were being funded through solicitors seeking evidence to use against vaccine manufacturers?

Is it true that the vast majority of your subjects from the Lancet study were not, as you claimed, captured through the normal referral process, but actually supplied to you by lawyers representing these people and their families in vaccine litigation?

Is it true that up to nine months prior to the publication of your paper showing a link between the MMR vaccine and autism that you and the Royal Free (where you conducted your research) filed numerous patent applications which were alternatives to the MMR vaccine? If you did, would you consider it a lucky guess that led you to do this seeing as your MMR paper had yet to be published?

Do you believe, like your collaborator Hugh Fudenberg, (http://briandeer.com/wakefield/hugh-fudenberg.htm) that:
Some parents would rather see their kid die than live as a severely autistic.
Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EOHarm/message/24062
[access barred/ Zugriff gesperrt, Aribert Deckers])

These are serious matters Mr Wakefield. I'm aware that you are pursuing three court cases related to these matters (although at least one is currently stayed) and you are also due to be investigated by the GMC sometime this year but as the parent of an autistic child - in short exactly the sort of person you claim to want to help - I need answers now. What I read of you indicates wrong doing on a grand scale. If these things are established to be true you are guilty of not only extreme medical negligence but also of betraying thousands of parents and forcing thousands of autistic children to undergo totally unnecessary and highly invasive medical procedures.

You need to account for yourself Mr Wakefield. Please don't wait for more children to be hospitalised or die.

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[/QUOTE]

Links:

[1] [ Brian Deer: The Wakefield factor                          ]
    [ Materials from a documentary investigation by Brian Deer  ] 
    [ for the UK's Channel 4 Television exposing the bizarre    ]
    [ true story of British gut surgeon Andrew Wakefield and    ]
    [ his strange crusade against a children's vaccine          ]
    [ http://briandeer.com/wakefield-deer.htm                   ]

[2] [ Brian Deer: MMR SCANDAL EXPOSED                        ]
    [ FOCUS: MMR - THE TRUTH BEHIND THE CRISIS               ]
    [ The Sunday Times (London) February 22 2004             ]
    [ Six years ago Andrew Wakefield linked MMR with autism. ] 
    [ It sparked a national health scare that could yet see  ]
    [ children die. Brian Deer reveals the doctor's secret   ]
    [ http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-deer-2.htm             ]

[3] [ Brian Deer: Hard sell                                ]
    [ In 1932, the American-born Henry Wellcome drafted    ]
    [ will documents intended to maintain his grip on the  ]
    [ pharmaceutical industry, even from beyond the grave. ]
    [ It was broken after Brian Deer's investigation       ]
    [ http://briandeer.com/hard-sell.htm                   ]

[4] [ MMR vaccine factsheet for parents                ]
    [ http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/mmr.html ]

[5] [ Kevin Leitch: Open Letter To Andrew Wakefield ]
    [ http://www.kevinleitch.co.uk/wp/?p=354        ]

[6] [ Zwei weitere Kinder aus NRW durch Masern an ]
    [ unheilbarer Gehirnentzündung SSPE erkrankt  ]

[7] Siegrist Claire-Anne, Aebi Christoph, Desgrandchamps Daniel, 
    Heininger Ulrich, Vaudaux Bernard:
    "Konsistent unrichtige Informationen"
    (http://www.ariplex.com/ama/ama_im18.htm)

    [zuerst veröffentlicht in "Schweizer Ärztezeitung", Basel, 2005]

    Das Original hat die URL 
    http://www.saez.ch/pdf/2005/2005-25/2005-25-777.PDF 

    Die Web-Site des Verlags ist http://www.saez.ch 


[8] Online-Lexikon "Krankheiten A-Z"
    des Berufsverbands der Kinder-  und Jugendärzte e.V. (BVKJ)

    http://www.kinderaerzteimnetz.de/bvkj/show.php3?id=27&nodeid=