Much has happened in the last few weeks surrounding Andrew Wakefield, and I have not been available to write about it. It has been truly frustrating to see this story reported as if the GMC hearing was legit and The Lancet as if it was a respectable and unbiased publication, rather than the dog fight between corporate interests and safety advocates that it actually is. Was the fact that 21 autism organizations in the US and UK filed perjury charges against the head of the Lancet for lying about Wakefield's disclosures of his conflicts in the GMC hearing not relevant to the fact that the Lancet retracted Wakefield's article the following week? Apparently the press didn't think so.
Fortunately AOA is all over it.
Today I had an hour and started mapping out the conflicts on interests in all of the forces that are posing as unbiased sources and trashing Wakefield and his work by charging him with conflicts of interest. The irony is lost on too many people.
It is a work in progress. One of my friends in the UK is looking it over to help fill in more of the blanks, so it will be updated.
A few notes. Judge Nigel Davis is the judge who ruled that families trying to sue GlaxoSmithKlein for the damage done to their children by the MMR would not be given legal aid to do so, ending MMR litigation in the UK. His brother is Sir Crispin Davis, who was the publisher of The Lancet and is on the board of GlaxoSmithKlein. Also... Paul Offit is an industry spokes person for Merck, that was too long to fit into the chart, so I used the more pejorative, "lap dog".
Look at the energy flow in this thing... Props to Dr. Wakefield and his compadres for not backing down under this insane amount of industrial pressure. I mean just look at this billion dollar medical/pharma/media/(arms sales?) unprincipled conglomco machine! Eliot Ness wasn't even up against this big of a beast when he took on the mob. And I have not even included any of the public health infrastructure, or the GMC in this flow chart.
click to see it full size.
