Pseudoscience at CDC – When Politics Trumps Science, How Many People are Harmed?

Natural News has acquired a letter from William Thompson to former CDC head Dr. Julie Gerberding, dated February 2nd, 2004. The date of this letter is important because a pivotal Institute of Medicine (IoM) meeting on vaccine safety took place just one week later on February 9th. (See the full letter below.)

In this letter, William Thompson says he will be “presenting the summary of our results from the Metropolitan Atlanta Autism Case-Control Study,” and he laments that the data will show MMR vaccines cause an increased risk of autism in youth African-American babies. He explains “I will have to present several problematic results relating to statistical associations between the receipt of MMR vaccine and autism.”

He then goes on to implore Dr. Gerberding to respond to questions that had been raised by “Representative David Weldon” regarding the integrity of CDC scientists working in the immunization program. He also explains that the CDC has been covering up the truth about the safety problems the agency’s own scientists had documented with vaccines, saying:

I’ve repeatedly told individuals in the [National Immunization Program Office of Directors] over the last several years that they’re doing a very poor job representing immunization safety issues and that we’re losing the public relations war.

In response to this letter, the CDC took deliberate action to retroactively alter the outcome of the autism study by arbitrarily eliminating most subjects from the study, thereby shrinking the sample size to a small data set which would not achieve statistical significance. This is a clear and irrefutable case of scientific fraud. This fraud allowed CDC scientists such as Colleen Boyle to testify before Congress that there was “no credible link” between MMR vaccines and autism.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/046597_CDC_whistleblower_secret_letter_Julie_Gerberding.html#ixzz3BQDF8yhf

See also: http://www.wddty.com/agency-hides-data-that-reveals-the-mmr-causes-autism.html

Pseudoscience: Forbes reports on disappearing medical paper

Medicine Or Mass Murder? Guideline Based on Discredited Research May Have Caused 800,000 Deaths In Europe Over The Last 5 Years

Forbes, Larry Husten, 15 Jan 2014

(Updated)– Last summer British researchers provoked concern when they published a paper raising the possibility that by following an established guideline UK doctors may have caused as many as 10,000 deaths each year. Now they have gone a step further and published an estimate that the same guideline may have led to the deaths of as many as 800,00 people in Europe over the last five years. The finding, they write, “is so large that the only context in the last 50 years comes from the largest scale professional failures in the political sphere.” The 800,000 deaths are comparable in size to the worst cases of genocide and mass murder in recent history.

In their new article published in the European Heart Journal, Graham Cole and Darrel Francis continue to explore the extent and implications of the damage caused by the Don Poldermans research misconduct case. [Update: the EHJ article has been removed from the EHJ website. For more on this see the bottom of the story.] The earlier paper demonstrated the potentially large and lethal consequences of the current European Society of Cardiology guideline recommending the liberal use of beta-blockers to protect the heart during surgery for people undergoing non cardiac surgery. The guideline was flawed because it was partly based on unreliable research performed by the disgraced Poldermans (who also served as the chairman of the guideline committee). This may seem like a highly technical question but it effects many millions of people and may, as Francis and his colleagues have demonstrated, led to many thousands of unnecessary deaths.

The new article, the first of two parts, makes no new scientific claims, but instead begins to consider the broader implications of the story. Cole and Francis briefly consider the dilemma of clinicians who may “feel unable to act in contravention of guideline recommendations recognized as ‘state-of-the-art’ by the European Society of Cardiology” and who may even be penalized for failing to follow guidelines.

They note that more than half of the lives lost– potentially more than 400,000– may “have occurred after the research was discredited,” though some of the damage may have been mitigated if doctors changed their practice after reading about the controversy. (There was a 2 year delay after the start of the Poldermans affair until the ESC withdrew the beta-blockade recommendation.)

Pseudoscience: Vaccine Fraud (update – finally some jail time)

Update: Dr. Dong-Pyou Han was sentenced to jail time and fined 7.2M.

(NaturalNews) Yet another vaccine researcher has been caught faking research on a bogus AIDS vaccine, adding to the pattern of scientific fraud and criminality that characterizes the modern-day vaccine industry. Dr. Dong-Pyou Han from Iowa State University has resigned this week after admitting he spiked rabbit blood samples with healthy human blood to falsely show the presence of antibodies that would “prove” his AIDS vaccine worked.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) was so convinced by the fraud that they gave Han $19 million in research funding. The NIH later found the fraud after attempting to replicate Han’s work and figuring out something was terribly wrong with the research.

Newly-released federal documents reveal the stunning breadth of the fraud. As the findings state:

[The investigation] found that the Respondent falsified results in research to develop a vaccine against human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) by intentionally spiking samples of rabbit sera with antibodies to provide the desired results. The falsification made it appear that rabbits immunized with the gp41-54 moiety of the HIV gp41 glycoprotein induced antibodies capable of neutralizing a broad range of HIV-1 strains.

A summary of the fraud was also posted on RetractionWatch.com, a site that frequently posts details of Big Pharma research fraud.

Merck vaccine scientists blew the whistle on similar fraud inside Big Pharma

Han’s $19 million vaccine research fraud eerily resembles the vaccine industry fraud exposed by former Merck virologists Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski. In a little-known False Claims Act filing, these two scientists accused Merck of spiking mumps vaccine blood tests with animal antibodies in order to make the vaccines appear to be effective.

This fraud is what allowed Merck to falsely claim its mumps vaccine is 95% effective, say the scientist whistleblowers. In reality, the fraudulent Merck mumps vaccine actually contributed to the spread of mumps across America, they explain.

The spread of mumps, of course, results in more people buying mumps vaccines. This is how scientific fraud can produce enormous profits for vaccine companies. In many cases, vaccines actually spread the disease they claim to prevent.

The fact that an AIDS vaccine research has now been caught faking his bogus AIDS vaccine in precisely the same way Merck scientists say Merck faked their vaccine tests is yet another significant red flag that screams the obvious: the vaccine industry is riddled with scientific fraud.

No punishment for scientific fraud

For being caught stealing $19 million in taxpayer grant money and faking AIDS vaccine research, Dr. Dong-Pyou Han is merely barred from receiving government contract money for the next three years.

No jail time. No criminal charges. Not even an effort to force him to repay the funds he essentially stole.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/043344_AIDS_vaccine_research_fraud_science_hoax.html#ixzz2ohsPW8kY

Pseudoscience: Spin Doctors

Spin and spin doctors: How medical researchers falsify data to change the course of healthcare

Sunday, August 18, 2013 by: Eric L. Zielinski
Tags: spin doctors, falsification, quack science

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) defines spin as the “specific reporting that could distort the interpretation of results and mislead readers.” Spin Doctors are, thus, the people falsifying data for reasons including financial ties to Big Pharma, to achieve higher professional status and to gain grant monies.

One of the most dramatic effects of spin is seen in a recent study published by JAMA. Researchers reported that over 40 percent of the best designed, peer-reviewed scientific papers published in the world’s top medical journals misrepresented the actual findings of the research. To confirm this and to identify the nature and frequency of distorted presentation or spin, Boutron et al. systematically evaluated 616 published reports of Random Control Trials (RCTs) and after appraising the 72 eligible studies concluded that, “In the representative sample of RCT’s published in 2006 with statistically nonsignificant primary outcomes, the reporting and interpretation of findings was frequently inconsistent with the results.” In other words, most of the published research has been intentionally falsified.

Spin has dramatically changed the course of healthcare and has deleteriously affected millions of people. One of the most shocking examples of this is when the National Institute of Health’s National Cholesterol Education Program dramatically lowered the ideal LDL level for cardiovascular disease prevention strategies in 2004; thereby, increasing the number of Americans for whom statins are recommended from 13 million to 36 million. Though, after a systematic review of the literature to confirm whether or not statins are even effective in managing heart disease, the highly acclaimed medical journal The Lancet published a paper concluding that, “In support of statin therapy for the primary prevention of this disease in women and people aged over 65 years, the guidelines cite seven and nine randomized trials, respectively. Yet not one of the studies provides such evidence.”

Thus, of the 23 million new people now with “high LDL levels;” however, there is no valid, scientifically proven reason to assume that they are at risk. Because of a spin on the data; however, they are labeled as being at elevated risk of developing coronary heart disease and are now being pressured by their medical doctors to take statins.

Learn more:
http://www.naturalnews.com/041668_spin_doctors_falsification_quack_science.html#ixzz2cLPbTBUw

Johns Hopkins Research Exposes Vaccine Pseudoscience

Influenza: marketing vaccine by marketing disease

BMJ

2013; 346 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f3037 (Published 16 May 2013)

Cite this as: BMJ 2013;346:f3037

The CDC pledges “To base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data, openly and objectively derived.” But Peter Doshi argues that in the case of influenza vaccinations and their marketing, this is not so.

Promotion of influenza vaccines is one of the most visible and aggressive public health policies today. Twenty years ago, in 1990, 32 million doses of influenza vaccine were available in the United States. Today around 135 million doses of influenza vaccine annually enter the US market, with vaccinations administered in drug stores, supermarkets—even some drive-throughs. This enormous growth has not been fueled by popular demand but instead by a public health campaign that delivers a straightforward, who-in-their-right-mind-could-possibly-disagree message: influenza is a serious disease, we are all at risk of complications from influenza, the flu shot is virtually risk free, and vaccination saves lives. Through this lens, the lack of influenza vaccine availability for all 315 million US citizens seems to border on the unethical. Yet across the country, mandatory influenza vaccination policies have cropped up, particularly in healthcare facilities,1 precisely because not everyone wants the vaccination, and compulsion appears the only way to achieve high vaccination rates.2 Closer examination of influenza vaccine policies shows that although proponents employ the rhetoric of science, the studies underlying the policy are often of low quality, and do not substantiate officials’ claims. The vaccine might be less beneficial and less safe than has been claimed, and the threat of influenza appears overstated.