Scientific Fraud and Vaccination

Interesting reports today about the British Medical Journal laying the boots in over the article in The Lancet of 1998 that linked autism to triple-antigen vaccination.

This is not the first time we've seen fraudulent medical research. The great Dr William McBride, having identified the link between thalidomide and birth defects, cfalsified his data in an eagernesee to (wrongly) claim another drug was causing defects.

At least McBride was simply misguided and over eager. The author of the autism study, Andrew Wakefield, was reportedly;

The findings had been skewed in advance, as the patients had been recruited via campaigners opposed to the MMR vaccine, the journal added.

And, said the BMJ, Wakefield had been confidentially paid hundreds of thousands of pounds through a law firm under plans to launch "class action" litigation against the vaccine.

However, as Leo Shanahan notes simply exposing the fraud won't suffice. Your average conspiracy theorist just finds the counter evidence to be more evidence of conspiracy.

I know I had a post here earlier in which I picked up something from Vic N on an item which researched the fact that telling people the truth can resultb in just strengthening their belief in the conspiracy - I'd link to it now if I could find it (memo must start tagging blogposts)

Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est