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#14882805
ness31 wrote:The fact that others couldn’t reproduce his results doesn’t mean much tbh.


Reproducibility means a lot. It's one of the cornerstones of the scientific method. If someone's claims in the field of medicine cannot be reproduced, or a range of fellow scientists find vastly different results, it can lead to reexamination of the claims, a full retraction, or possibly even worse.

Did Wakefield count on all those other other issues of misconduct to destroy him? Probably not. Why he felt comfortable using kids as lab rats and not disclosing financial conflicts of interest is anyone’s guess, but maybe he felt it was the norm.


Using children without consent of the parents/their consent (depends on age) is literally the definition of unethical and grounds for disciplinary (and/or legal) action. It's not the norm among doctors. There is no doctor, or any qualified scientist on Earth, who would possibly be confused on that point.
#14882818
Reproducibility means a lot. It's one of the cornerstones of the scientific method. If someone's claims in the field of medicine cannot be reproduced, or a range of fellow scientists find vastly different results, it can lead to reexamination of the claims, a full retraction, or possibly even worse.


I understand it’s the premise of scientific theory. But practically, if the will isn’t there to reproduce the results it won’t happen. As I said, there could have been many reasons, both from Wakefield and others which may have caused this.

Using children without consent of the parents/their consent (depends on age) is literally the definition of unethical and grounds for disciplinary (and/or legal) action. It's not the norm among doctors. There is no doctor, or any qualified scientist on Earth, who would possibly be confused on that point.


He isn’t your garden variety GP, and he’s probably on the spectrum himself.

And let’s not get all high and mighty about what pharmaceutical companies and researchers do in order to get their products tested. When it’s done en masse in the third world it’s called philanthropy..
#14882860
That's exactly the point, @ness31. Scientists and doctors conducting experiments done in an unethical fashion like him do so knowingly. Becoming a qualified doctor or a researcher requires knowledge of scientific/medical ethics. The same applies to psychiatrists and so on. A doctor who takes blood samples from children at a party after luring them with a little bit of money, and without the consent of their parents, isn't someone who is confused about medical ethics. To become a doctor, one literally requires knowledge of medical ethics. A person training to become a doctor who is unaware that it's unlawful and unethical to do that to children without anyone's consent is not going to become a doctor. It was a deliberate breach of medical ethics.

He was not railroaded or persecuted. He performed minimally invasive experiments on people (violating children specifically) without the knowledge of their PCP or guardians (and not even in a reasonably sterile environment), repeatedly violated basic medical ethics, and so on.

No one can guarantee people who don't care about ethics won't fake their responses or their behavior, but there's absolutely no way a qualified, trained doctor is in the dark about very clear unethical behavior being inappropriate.
#14882862
It was a deliberate breach of medical ethics.


There is no argument that what he did wasn’t ethical. Whether or not his deliberate breach as you put it speaks to a broader culture of unethical behaviour is another matter entirely.

He acted very selfishly, and that is a great loss for such an important subject. If you’re going to pursue a thesis which is going to be so controversial, and so outside of what is socially and scientifically acceptable you’d want to be extra vigilant, wouldn’t you? Clearly he didn’t feel the need for that. The question is, why?
#14882864
There is indeed a broader culture where unethical medical behavior is sometimes promoted, sometimes rewarded, sometimes tolerated, sometimes celebrated: modern society. In the US alone, we have seen egregious, criminal abuses of the healthcare system. From the 1930s to at least the 1970s, a number of blacks in the American South who had syphilis, which was treatable, were given what they were told were treatments to cure their ailment, but which were nothing more than placebo injections. In fact, the story is far worse than that. They were never told they had syphilis, and when funding for the program ended, the doctors involved continued to carry out the experiment, called the Tuskeegee Experiment. Because their diagnosis was deliberately withheld and distorted, they were never able to seek treatment until the experiment was outed by a whistleblower, even after antibiotics to treat syphilis were developed.
Image

There's also the radiation experiments from the 1940s to the 1970s/1980s where Americans, including children, infants, and pregnant women, were unknowingly and deliberately exposed to radiation, sometimes lethal amounts of it, by their doctors.

Then there's also MKULTRA, conducted by the CIA, which tried to use LSD and other psychotropic drugs as truth-telling drugs during torture. Some American (and sometimes foreign) citizens, ranging from prostitutes and their johns, the homeless, the poor, and others were kidnapped, tortured, subjected to massive doses of experimental drugs, and sometimes murdered. We actually don't know just how many people were forced into it without their consent, who virtually all of those people were, or more than vague details of their general backgrounds, because almost all of that data was destroyed by the CIA to get rid of incriminating evidence of criminal conspiracy. Ironically, MKULTRA also recruited volunteers to take LSD and report its effects, one of which was the acclaimed sci-fi author, Philip K. Dick.

In all of the above cases, the doctors and their supervisors were never brought to justice. Today, many American companies engage in exploitative practices, particularly in the developing world, to conduct medical research on human subjects.

These abuses aren't limited to America, nor to the field of medicine. We tolerate unethical behavior in business (our global system of capitalism exists through exploitation, debt, and poverty), politics, religion, and so on.

As to your question about the doctor himself, I honestly think you are overthinking the issue. There are a number of professionals in all walks of life who do things that are inappropriate, unethical, and/or legally defined as criminal. It doesn't mean they have a secret plan or an arc they're getting at.
#14882946
So what is the take-away from the Wakefield affair? Let's start with this.

This doctor exposed children to dangerous and painful totally unnecessary procedures. It is not hyperbole to make the case that he ought to have been jailed for this and had these actions been done in the US it is entirely possible that he would have been.

Further. We do not know if any children were harmed or continue to be harmed because of his completely and deliberately falsified study results. It is reasonable to assume that some might have been.

We also know that this unrepentant charlatan moved to the US and continues to make money off of the Anti-Vax movement. His movie on the subject was removed from a film festival because it was dangerous and completely groundless, not to mention slanderous to many legitimate researchers.

Earlier in this thread someone tried to question the integrity of the Public Health community, particularly epidemiologists, ignorantly trying to paint their work as unscientific. This is, of course, completely false as I showed citing his own links just to make a point. But it points out a larger problem. That is that even reasonably intelligent people can be deceived. We could point to the entire vitamin industry and emerging research pointing to data that show that some vitamin overuse or even routine use may lead to an increase in cancer in some people. Other kinds of harm as well. So.

Why aren't we seeing the immediate withdrawal of some vitamin or herbal products from the market? Two reasons. One is an excess of caution. Epidemiologists tend to favor that approach. Another is the political power of this huge industry. And we cannot discount the will of the people. People want their vitamins and demand a good reason why they can't have them.

When banning a substance (consider pot for example) some harm is not the only criteria. The public is willing to accept a certain risk/reward. The public also defaults to the principle of liberty as a general rule. But consider this. Researchers can rely on a considerable armory of studies that show that the general use of vitamins, in some cases, can lead to increased risk of some kinds of cancer. The much touted antioxidant vitamins may be further associated with increased risk. So why not ban vitamins? See the above. Perhaps that is coming some day. What should you do about vitamins? Spend the money on watermelon or a good movie perhaps? You decide. Or better yet, let your doctor decide, based on testing, when or if you need vitamin supplementation. But the whole point is that you should make the decision based on settled science. And settled science is what epidemiologists are looking to produce.

There is a point in epidemiology where one shouts 'wait a minute'. That is when evidence shows that something is potentially very wrong but before all of the I's are dotted. This is a judgment call. There is nothing wrong with this. For example, if I was a smoker and taking vitamins I would stop. There are some pretty compelling studies linking certain vitamin use with an increased risk of lung cancer. Will this eventually lead to a banning or regulation of some vitamins? Who knows? But a smart consumer can look at the initial studies and decide for themselves. For now. But when the results become settled science the government may choose to step in as it did with tobacco or heroine (a registered trade name by the way). It could regulate them like cigarettes or ban them like heroine. It will all, in the end, depend on the research results.
#14884685
Drlee wrote:So what is the take-away from the Wakefield affair? Let's start with this.

This doctor exposed children to dangerous and painful totally unnecessary procedures. It is not hyperbole to make the case that he ought to have been jailed for this and had these actions been done in the US it is entirely possible that he would have been.

That charge was overturned by the High Court, all the tests and procedures were clinically warranted. You don't know what you're talking about, you're just making an appeal to consensus and authority which relies on the ignorance and apathy of your audience.


Earlier in this thread someone tried to question the integrity of the Public Health community, particularly epidemiologists, ignorantly trying to paint their work as unscientific.

Yeah, nobody in this thread ever claimed epidemiology isn't a science. I get that bullshit flies in this world but this forum isn't important enough to bother with bullshitting. Maybe you're just bullshitting yourself?

Anyway, here's what a real epidemiologist thinks about vaccine safety -
Walter Spitzer Testimony
Last edited by Sivad on 01 Feb 2018 08:10, edited 1 time in total.
#14884690
This thread is starting to feel like a game of Jeopardy :eh:

That charge was overturned by the High Court, all the tests and procedures were clinically warranted. You don't know what you're talking about, you're just making an appeal to consensus and authority which relies on the ignorance and apathy of your audience
.

I can’t find a link to support this - only articles about the other doctors being exonerated..
#14884691
Sivad wrote:Yeah, nobody in this thread ever claimed epidemiology isn't a science. I get that bullshit flies in this world but this forum isn't important enough to bother with bullshitting. Maybe you're just bullshitting yourself?


It's only in the minds of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists to believe that vaccines are:

  • Unsafe
  • Cause autism
  • Don't create immunity
  • Are not responsible for the elimination of smallpox, rinderpest in animals, and the near-elimination of a host of other diseases

With the important note that vaccines are only unsafe for people with compromised immune systems or allergies to the minute traces of adjuvants, all of those beliefs are wholly false, especially in the case of continued claims about a link between vaccines and autism which does not exist.

No one is obligated to continue to go around again in circles, forever, simply because you continue to promote conspiracy theories, literal falsified data, and distortions (as when you recently tried to attribute an article about a separate scientist to a different one to promote bullshit) of different studies/articles.

There's simply nothing more to say about your claims, backed up by absolutely nothing, and continually discredited. You've made more than one post knowingly trying to mislead people reading this thread. It's as if you think people can't read the thread and see the multiple instances of you posting misleading content again and again; not simply falsified data or ridiculous claims, but actual instances in which you posted misleading quoted content. Since you have nothing to contribute, present no evidence, and can't even post in good faith, I see no reason to make any further posts in this garbage dump of a conspiracy theory thread (as it has now become).
#14884697
Bulaba Jones wrote:
No one is obligated to continue to go around again in circles, forever


You could at least address the fact that both Cochrane and the IOM clearly state that the epidemiology is flawed and inherently limited. I'm just asking you to address the accepted science and you can't even do that.
#14884698
ness31 wrote:This thread is starting to feel like a game of Jeopardy :eh:

.

I can’t find a link to support this - only articles about the other doctors being exonerated..


Wakefield and Walker-Smith were co-defendants on that charge, if one is cleared the other is cleared de facto.
#14884711
I’ve never heard of co-defendants. Why would that even be necessary when you just charge people individually with the same offences? There might be reasons why the others were cleared and not Wakefield, no?
#14884754
Sivad wrote:You could at least address the fact that both Cochrane and the IOM clearly state that the epidemiology is flawed and inherently limited. I'm just asking you to address the accepted science and you can't even do that.


You seem to be taking the normal limitations of science (i.e. the fact that all scientific knowledge is contingent) and the ethical limits of epidemiology (i.e. you cannot conduct lab experiments on whole populations in terms of infection) and then using these facts to assume that all of epidemiology is hokum.
#14884774
Bulaba Jones wrote:There is indeed a broader culture where unethical medical behavior is sometimes promoted, sometimes rewarded, sometimes tolerated, sometimes celebrated: modern society. In the US alone, we have seen egregious, criminal abuses of the healthcare system. From the 1930s to at least the 1970s, a number of blacks in the American South who had syphilis, which was treatable, were given what they were told were treatments to cure their ailment, but which were nothing more than placebo injections. In fact, the story is far worse than that. They were never told they had syphilis, and when funding for the program ended, the doctors involved continued to carry out the experiment, called the Tuskeegee Experiment. Because their diagnosis was deliberately withheld and distorted, they were never able to seek treatment until the experiment was outed by a whistleblower, even after antibiotics to treat syphilis were developed.
Image



The Tuskeegee experiment was conducted before penicillin so there was no treatment for syphilis. The test subject already had the disease. The Tuskeegee Institute, a historically Black college, was instrumental in conducting the study. Eunice Verdell Rivers Laurie, a Black registered nurse was the coordinator of the experiment and the main contact point with the test subjects.
#14884782
The Tuskeegee experiment was conducted before penicillin so there was no treatment for syphilis. The test subject already had the disease. The Tuskeegee Institute, a historically Black college, was instrumental in conducting the study. Eunice Verdell Rivers Laurie, a Black registered nurse was the coordinator of the experiment and the main contact point with the test subjects.


Why are you off topic? Do you just like to continue your racist agenda? This has nothing at all to do with the subject and nothing at all to do with modern epidemiology. Nothing to see here.
#14884803
Suntzu wrote:The Tuskeegee experiment was conducted before penicillin so there was no treatment for syphilis. The test subject already had the disease. The Tuskeegee Institute, a historically Black college, was instrumental in conducting the study. Eunice Verdell Rivers Laurie, a Black registered nurse was the coordinator of the experiment and the main contact point with the test subjects.


Pencillin was discovered as a treatment for syphilis in the 1940s. After the experiment lost funding, the participants were never told they had syphilis and were never treated for it, up to the 1970s. The experiment was initiated, organized, and overseen by the Public Health Service branch of the government.

@Drlee is intelligent enough (and is able to read) to have easily noticed that I brought up the Tuskeegee Experiment not as a racial issue, but as another example of a lack of medical ethics and an abuse of American citizens by the government.
#14884843
I realize that Bulaba. And I do not object. The experiments are a black mark on the USPHS; an organization with which I am intimately acquainted. My racist comment was, as usual, directed at Suntsu who posted his usual racist trolling. Racism like his is extremely annoying to me. I take solace in the fact that I have never met an above average intelligence racist.Just for the record there were treatments for syphilis before PCN.
#14884858
I was commenting on how you were correct to note SunTzu was trying to insert race baiting (which has become typical) to derail things, and that you are able to read properly and saw there was nothing focusing on race there. I think you may have overlooked I was responding to his race-baiting post, not you.
#14884890
Sunny’s a peculiar one. I don’t think he’s racist as much as he is just very good at statistics and noticing differences about race. Have you seen that show The Good Doctor? That’s who SunTzu reminds me of.

God damn I’m good. That’s not even off topic because The Good Doctor is Autistic ;)
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