On the heels of the wonderful news that Bill Gates and his wife are investing ten billion dollars to get vaccines to kids who need them…
“Vaccines are a miracle,” added Melinda Gates. “With just a few doses, they can prevent deadly diseases for a lifetime. We’ve made vaccines our priority at the Gates Foundation because we’ve seen firsthand their incredible impact on children’s lives.”
… The Lancet finally retracts the Wakefield paper. From the BBC:
The medical journal which originally published the discredited research linking autism and MMR has now issued a full retraction of the paper.
The Lancet said it now accepted claims made by the researchers were “false”. It comes after Dr Andrew Wakefield, the lead researcher in the 1998 paper, was ruled last week to have broken research rules by the General Medical Council.
The publication caused vaccination rates to plummet, resulting in a rise in measles.
…Last week, the GMC ruled Dr Wakefield had shown a “callous disregard” for children and acted “dishonestly” while he carried out his research. It will decide later whether to strike him off the medical register.
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About bloody time.
I don’t know about you, but I am really looking forward to the GMC panel on April 7th, where they will look into whether Wakefield did any professional misconduct and find out what sanctions should be imposed.
Woop!
A little too late, but I’ll give them a “woop!” nonetheless. Thanks for the news.
Awesome news about Bill Gates as well. It’s almost enough to get me to install IE7 – but let’s not get crazy.
BREAKING NEWS EVERYONE!!
http://is.gd/7AShH
According to news report broadcast on their Facebook page, Meryl Dorey is resigning as president of the Australian Vaccination Network. The AVN is getting closer and closer to shutting down… here’s hoping!
I sometimes write a post that collates blog responses, both positive and negative, to a given issue.
I’m keeping one now on responses to the Lancet retraction of the Wakefield’s paper.
I’ve added your post to the list.
The post is at
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2010/02/on-the-lancets-retraction-of-wakefields-1998-paper-alleging-a-connection-between-the-mmr-vaccine-and.html
http://avn.org.au/nocompulsoryvaccination/?p=454
AVN to close its doors at the end of this month
Oops, pushed post too soon.
One of the heartening things about doing this collation & the previous on the GMC Wakefield findings is the number of folk outside of the science-based-autism and skeptics enclaves that applauded the two events.
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