Has this doctor been misjudged?

[bluemoon24]

Two days in Bournemouth made a pleasant prospect last week. A conference on autism was the draw, and its star attraction was Dr Andrew Wakefield, back briefly in the UK after a spell of purgatory in the US. Dr Wakefield, you may remember, was the doctor who in 1998 posited, on tenuous evidence, a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. A public health nightmare ensued.



Back then, it also transpired that the doctor had been commissioned to look into the likelihood of a link between the vaccine and autism for a possible legal case, thus compromising his objectivity. Later his co-authors withdrew their names from the research. Wakefield left the UK — some say he was hounded out — to set up an institute in America pursuing his unorthodox research into a possible link between bowel disease and autism.



But the Bournemouth conference, which took place this weekend, and was entitled Autism is Treatable! , was not for me. It saw Wakefield sharing the platform at Bournemouth International Centre with a stable of controversial experts on autism.



These individuals are characterised by varying permutations of strange beliefs, such as that vaccination does more harm than good, and that heavy metals (in, say, vaccine preservatives) are poisoning childrens minds and triggering autism. Some also believe that diet, vitamin supplements and other drugs — so-called biomedical interventions — will relieve autism.



Sir Michael Rutter, professor of developmental psycho-pathology at Kings College London and a reliable authority on autism, suggests that there is no conclusive evidence in favour of biomedical intervention for autism. Dr Wakefield and his ilk are, in effect, advocates for biomedical experimentation on children with autism.



Along with Dr Wakefield, speakers Dr Anju Usman, Paul Shattock and Dr Christopher Heard have all been involved with the Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) initiative, which comes from the Autism Research Institute (ARI), a San Diego-based charity. (By the way, if Shattock, a pharmacist at the University of Sunderland, seems familiar, it is because he said he had found a group of children whose autism was "caused" by the MMR vaccine. So compelling was this evidence that no leading journal published it.) Dr Usman is one of a handful of advocates of chelation therapy — a controversial toxin-removal treatment — for autism. In the United States in August 2005, a five-year-old autistic child died while being chelated.



At the time of writing, due to speak alongside Dr Wakefield in Bournemouth was one of his defenders, Dr Arthur Krigsman. The two are involved in the Thoughtful House Centre for Children, a Texas-based centre for treatment and research into developmental disorders. Also due to speak was Dr Boyd Haley, a chemist at the Uni- versity of Kentucky who believes that mercury-based preservatives contribute to autism, and Dr Devin Houston, the founder of Houston Nu-traceuticals. DAN! is "dedicated to educating parents and clinicians regarding biomedically based research, appropriate testing and safe and effective interventions for autism".



The ARI notes that: "There are now several hundred DAN! physicians worldwide and thousands of children — many of them the sons and daughters of DAN! physicians — who are no longer diagnosed as autistic and have been mainstreamed into their school systems."



Now, what does that last sentence say to you? Does it suggest to you, as it does to me, that autism can be banished to some degree? The consensus is that there is no cure for autism — it is a lifelong disability. And that is what alarmed me about this conference. Saturdays sessions, according to the web-site, were due to "cover specifics of the more common biomedical interventions followed by parent ‘Stories of Hope & Success, including a before-and-after video". If this sell wasnt designed to make parents think that this conference would at least partially cure their childs autism — at a daily attendance fee of £100 — then Im a parrot.



And when there are desperate parents who will listen to you, who needs the Establish-ment? So these mavericks continue to circulate, paddling in the same scientific shallows, attending the same conferences and boasting connections with the same research institutes. They travel the world quoting each other in circular support, reinforcing a fringe belief in unproven interventions for autism and propagating the mistaken view that ordinary doctors are cowed by mysterious vested interests (pharmaceutical companies?) into not doing their best for children with autism.



Their harmful agenda is, regrettably, assisted by newspapers with acres of space to fill, who delight in feeding the middle-class paranoia over perfect parenting. For these organs, the tall, charismatic, articulate Dr Wakefield is a newsroom blessing on a slow Sunday. Or, in the case of Channel 5, which produced a docudrama followed by a lame debate (in which I participated), a surefire ratings winner. Unfortunately for Dr Wakefield and his disciples, dozens of epidemiological studies published in reputable journals have failed to confirm an MMR-autism link.



There is nothing wrong with a scientist pursuing a hunch, and everything right about parents wanting to do the best for their child. There is nothing even particularly sinister about Dr Wakefield gambling his reputation on an instinct. But there is something depressing beyond belief about a scientist who refuses to recant in the face of overwhelming opposing evidence.



Dr Wakefield claims to hold the interests of autistic children and their parents above all, and has been lauded simply for listening. But showing compassion and respect to those affected by autism is also about being brave enough to admit you were wrong, and not using the fears and hopes of vulnerable parents to push your own agenda.



Kaynak: SağlıkHaber