If a Britney Spears song should be quoted when it comes to famous Anti-Vaccine activist Jenny McCarthy regarding her son’s “autism” being “caused” by vaccines, and that claims after effects, it would have to be “Toxic“. It seems that an investigative journalist, Brian Deer, brought to light the “elborate fraud” perpetrated by one Dr. Andrew Wakefield against parents the world over. Who is Dr. Wakefield? This is the “scientist” that Jenny McCarthy and her anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists cite when they make their allegations about vaccines causing autism.

Anderson Cooper skewers anti-vaccine researcher

It seems that some of the parents that had children in the study Dr. Wakefield’s 1998 paper was based on are claiming that some of the medical history of their children was misrepresented. Out of nine children “diagnosed” with regressive autism, three did not have any medical diagnosis of autism at the time of the study. Out of the children in the study, only one child had a medically diagnosed case of regressive autism. Dr. Wakefield disputes these claims, but the most important information brought to light by the investigation of Brian Deer, in my opinion, is:

“Although the research involved only a dozen children, and its results have never been replicated, many medical breakthroughs have begun with small-scale observations, and, if true, Wakefield’s findings might have been the first snapshot of a hidden epidemic of devastating injuries.”

As the wife of a scientist, and as a social scientist myself, I can tell you that the soundness of the methodology of a scientific study is ESSENTIAL. A study with 12 subjects determining the validity (or invalidity) of forty years of scientific and allegorical evidence, especially when the subjects of this study were NOT randomized but handpicked for having certain diagnoses, is not to be trusted, in my professional opinion.

Why should we care? Well, dear reader, after the introduction of the MMR vaccine in 1963, cases of measles in the U.S.A. went from 500,000 cases annually with 500 deaths, to less than 50 cases annually with most of them originating outside the country. Since Dr. Wakefield’s fraudulent study came to light, and Ms. McCarthy and her ilk lit their torches, clusters of diseases like Whooping Cough (pertussis), measles, and mumps (which can lead to meningitis and encephalitis) have popped up all over the country.

The worst part of all of this is that Ms. McCarthy came out in 2010 to say that her son no longer exhibits ANY signs of autism-WHOOPSIE! It seems that her son actually suffers from an entirely different affliction called Landau-Kleffner syndrome which is a rare childhood disorder which can lead to long-term neurological damage and possible speech impairment. Ms. McCarthy was quoted as saying that she would like vaccines to be “better researched”  instead of eradicated (her previous position).

Unfortunately the damage has been done. In my research for this article I ran across a number of fascinating sites with information on this topic, the most amusingly named one was  http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Anti-Vaccine_Body_Count/Preventable_Deaths.html-which compiles the number of reported “preventable deaths” from CDC reports on a weekly basis. You can also read Mr. Deer’s research on Dr. Wakefield’s fraudulent study here. To read the British medical journal the Lancet’s retraction of Dr. Wakefield’s paper click here. To catch fellow Victory Girl Deanna’s take on this subject, come back this Tuesday for Part 2 of the series!!