*For most of the Wakefield "conflict of interest" articles posted on the site, click here (check periodically for updates)

►February 27, 2004 - Jury still out on safety of male hormones - New York Times via The Houston Chronicle - "Given the shocking recent discovery of potentially serious ill effects of hormone replacement for women, it is hardly surprising that many experts are warning against assuming that supplemental testosterone is safe and effective for men experiencing the normal effects of aging."

►February 28, 2004 - Netherlands to crack down on complementary medicine - journal article (BMJ) - "The Netherlands is considering tougher laws on practitioners of complementary medicine after government health inspectors who were investigating the death from breast cancer in 2001 of the actress and comedienne Sylvia Millecam severely criticised her treatment.^..The investigators found that alternative practitioners contradicted the diagnosis of breast cancer made by her doctors and offered her instead the prospect of a cure with 'unfounded methods of treatment.'"

Comment:  Would that unfounded allopathic methods of treatment and misdiagnoses were eyed with the same level of scrutiny.

►February 23, 2004 - Doctors pressure human guinea pigs - MDs are paid up to $5,000 per patient to sign up volunteers for drug trials - CanWest News Service via The Vancouver Sun via www.canada.com

Comment:  Wow.  If that isn't a conflict of interest, I don't know what is.  This article is chock-full of disturbing information.

►February 28, 2004 - Only 6% of drug advertising material is supported by evidence - journal article (BMJ)

►Mad Cow Disease, Mad Deer Disease - Chronic Wasting Disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy - feature articles - Organic Consumers Association

►February 29, 2004 - New Vaccine Shortage - CDC via www.about.com

►March 1, 2004 - Misreporting Measles Research - National Electronic Library for Health (archive) - www.nelh.nhs.uk - "The research study found that a higher proportion of children with developmental disorder and new variant inflammatory bowel disease had measles virus in their gut tissue than healthy children."

Comment:  This analysis tries to make it appear as if there is no evidence linking MMR vaccine to the measles virus in these children or good reason to believe they might be connected. As for research, there is research evidence linking the two.  As for good reason, these children were vaccinated and had never had the measles.  So the presence of measles virus in their gut probably either means that a) it is measles vaccine virus or b) vaccinated children who get the measles can suffer gastrointestinal problems which may or may not be related to autism. 

►The Exemption Debate - West Virginians For Vaccination Exemptions

►March 1, 2004 - Vaccinations: Irrational fear isn't confined to Third World - editorial - The Dallas Morning News - "Polio is back in northern Nigeria, thanks to a conspiracy theory spread by some Muslim clerics. They're telling their people that a United Nations vaccine program is part of a Western plot to render their women infertile. African children will be left crippled because of such barbaric nonsense, and a dread disease that could have been eradicated by scientists will live to maim countless others...But before we start feeling too superior to the superstitious Nigerians, let's consider how vulnerable our own irrational fears of vaccines leave our population to potentially calamitous outbreaks of disease."

Comment:  It's only an irrational fear if you dismiss or ignore the evidence against vaccines.

►February 29, 2004 - Nil by mouth - For thousands of Britons battling the debilitating effects of cancer, depression, even eczema, diet is crucial. They view the vitamins and minerals they take as vital in their fight against sickness. So why does the EU want to cut off their supply? Rose Shepherd makes the case for rescuing remedies - The Observer via The Guardian, UK - "In the 21st century we live under siege. There are concerns about pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, GM, mobile phones, microwaves, amalgam fillings, falling sperm counts, mad cows, MMR - even milk. Farmed salmon is a Trojan horse for carcinogens. Obesity and diabetes are on the march. There is a mass of documentation on all this. So what is the European Commission's big idea? 'Let's clamp down on vitamins and minerals.'...It would be funny if it weren't so tragic. While the EU has been busy drafting legislation, we seem to have been sleepwalking into a situation where chemists and health stores will be purged of hundreds of nutritional supplements."

►February 29, 2004 - Parents lobby to ease immunization laws - St. Louis Post-Dispatch - "The same vaccines that many credit with ushering in a public health miracle were a curse to 4-year-old Caleb Mueller, his father believes...Keith Mueller of Kansas City blames a batch of state-mandated vaccines with causing a severe allergic reaction in his son when the boy was just over 1. Today, the father is certain that his son's autism is tied to the shots, as well...Mueller is joining several parents rights advocates this year to support bills in the Missouri Legislature that would make it easier for parents to exclude their children from immunizations."

►February 27, 2004 - Drugs limit deadly side effects of graft-versus-host disease - Could make bone marrow transplants an option for more cancer patients - University of Michigan Health System via www.eurekalert.org 

►February 28, 2004 - Panel Urges Stricter Limits on Acne Drug - Reuters via Yahoo! News 

►March 1, 2004 - CDC Says Ads Getting Kids to Play Outside - AP via The Herald-Sun 

►February 29, 2004 - Dismal payout record for radiation-induced illnesses - Government programs aimed at compensating cancer-stricken nuclear-era workers or survivors criticized for complexity and heavy denial rate - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 

►March 1, 2004 - Studying Hyperlexia May Unlock How Brains Read - Children With Rare Disorder Have Heightened Reading, Learning Skills (requires registration) - Washington Post

►February 29, 2004 - Religious exemption worries Ripley mother - Sunday Gazette-Mail - "'How can these groups call themselves pro-life and pro-family if taking a moral stand against abortions performed in the 1960s takes precedence over protecting the lives of those with weakened immune systems today?' she asked."

Comment:  As I said in my 2002 speech: "Public Health will say that these vaccines must be mandatory or these diseases will spread.  But if the vaccines work, anyone choosing them will be protected.  If they don’t prevent the spread of the disease to the vaccinated, what is the point?  It hardly seems right that those who don’t want to be vaccinated should be required to be vaccinated, because vaccines don’t always work...And to whatever extent vaccines are being required because the “immune suppressed” cannot be vaccinated, and are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of disease, while my heart goes out to such people, they are not more important than children who are harmed by vaccines.  Nor should the notion that vaccination may in itself be creating immune suppression be left out of this equation...Besides there is documented proof of outbreaks in 100% vaccinated populations.  Now, whose fault is that?"

►February 27, 2004 - Alliance Sets Goal to Increase Child Vaccinations - Reuters via Yahoo! - "The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and The Vaccine Fund, its financial arm, hope to raise $400 million annually from governments and private sources to immunize 30 million children against diseases such as polio, hepatitis and yellow fever...'Our goal is to allow every child, everywhere in the world access to immunizations,' Jacques-Francois Martin, the president of The Vaccine Fund, said at the London launch of the campaign."

►February 29, 2004 - Problems of modern children often take a back seat to the seemingly more urgent problems of adults - Growing up pains - Times Leader

►February 29, 2004 - Red tape delays hepatitis-B vaccination - The Daily Star

Comment:  For a different perspective on both the risk of acquiring hepatitis B as well as its seriousness, go to Scandals: The CDC and “The New Math”, where 1 + 1  does not equal 2.  For more on the the spread of hepatitis B in developing nations and why advocating the use of vaccination, under the circumstances, is very revealing, go to Scandals: "But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last." - Thomas Moore (Scandals - update and "flashback").

►February 29, 2004 - NHS scornful of Charles on alternative medicines - www.independent.co.uk - "National Health Service managers yesterday dismissed calls by Prince Charles for more complementary medicines to be made freely available on the NHS, saying most of them did not work...Dr Gill Morgan, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, the umbrella body for managers, said the NHS could use only those medicines that had been proven effective, ruling out the majority of complementary therapies."

►February 29, 2004 - Is Biotechnology Losing Its Nerve? (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times - "S a founder of four biotechnology companies, Dennis A. Carson can practically write an encyclopedia entry on risk. After all, his first start-up, a gene therapy and vaccine company called Vical, still does not have a product on the market after 16 years and more than $100 million spent...But now Dr. Carson, who is also the director of the cancer center at the University of California at San Diego, is playing it safe, or at least safer. Rather than develop radical new technology or invent new medicines, his latest venture, Salmedix, plans to sell drugs licensed from other companies - drugs that are already on the market or that have at least gone through some clinical trials."

►February 29, 2004 - Research slowly helping despair give way to hope (requires registration) - The Arizona Republic - "'Your child has autism.'...More than 10 families contact the Phoenix-based South- west Autism Research & Resource Center every week after hearing that devastating diagnosis...I say 'family' because autism not only affects your child, but every member of the family. How you feel, what you do, where you eat, how and where you sleep largely depend upon your child with autism."

►February 27, 2004 - HRT risks 'were known years ago' - Women could have been told about the risks of taking hormone replacement therapy years ago. - BBC

►February 26, 2004 - Mix of Chemicals Plus Stress Damages Brain, Liver in Animals and Likely in Humans - news release - Duke University Medical Center

►February 22, 2004 - WHO ‘suppressed’ scientific study into depleted uranium cancer fears in Iraq - Radiation experts warn in unpublished report that DU weapons used by Allies in Gulf war pose long-term health risk - Sunday Herald, UK

►February 26, 2004 - Leslie Burke is terminally ill. Today he will ask a court for the right to live - www.independent.co.uk

►February 29, 2004 - Great Influenza killed quickly, cruelly, perversely - Vivid history of U.S. epidemic of 1918 is also a cautionary tale for our times (requires registration) - book review - The Providence Journal

►February 25, 1999  - Antimicrobial Resistance: The NIH Response to a Growing Problem - National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institutes of Health

►February 29, 2004 - 'Unless pin-up parents rally round, we will see the return of dread diseases' - comment - The Observer via The Guardian, UK - "Meet 'John' and 'Jane', pin-up parents. They insist on organic food for their toddler, bring him to the best baby group in town, buy him only all-cotton outfits from Baby Gap and won't let him watch more than three hours of television a week...Despite this perfect parenting, however, John and Jane put their child's health at risk every day. They are among the 5 per cent of British parents who have opted out of vaccinating their child."

Comment:  This argument rests on assuming that the epidemic of autism, the rise in chronic disease (including cancer, asthma, diabetes), and other concerns raised by so-called "pin-up parents" could have nothing to do with vaccination and have been scientifically settled.  But condescension does not truth make.  And buying the propaganda generated by the vaccine manufacturers as to the safety of their product does not prevent harm from being done.  To the contrary, if these parents are right, it merely serves to perpetuate and compound the damage.

►February 29, 2004 - Most `stomach flu' avoidable - In case you haven't been listening, wash those germy hands! - AP via Akron Beacon Journal via www.ohio.com

►February 29, 2004 - Health bosses deny MMR deception - Health bosses have denied university students' claims that they were tricked into having the MMR vaccine without their knowledge. - BBC - "A mass inoculation programme against mumps took place at the University of Kent at Canterbury earlier this month after six students caught the disease...Now some students have told a national newspaper they were not told they were being given the MMR vaccine."

►February 29, 2004 - Tragedy saves twin, motivates his parents - The Modesto Bee - "RSV is something most of us can shrug off as a common cold: a shot of Nyquil, a box of Kleenex and a few nights of discomfort...Many babies get it, too, from shopping carts and from being around others with colds. But for infants in the high-risk category, it can be deadly. For them, RSV can have the same impact as double-pneumonia would on an adult."

►2004 - Red Wine Maintains Immune System - www.about.com

►February 29, 2004 - Activists get help in fight on AIDS - Grant: Maryland groups receive $335 million, part of the president's pledge to fight the disease and help victims in Africa and elsewhere. - Baltimore Sun

►February 28, 2004 - CDC chief urges better effort to stop diseases that affect women - The New York Times via Seattle Post-Intelligencer

►February 29, 2004 - Campaign: Scandal of the Anthrax Babies: A Deadly Chemical Weapon - The Sunday Mirror, UK

►February 29, 2004 - Campaign: Scandal of the Anthrax Babies: Our Worst Nightmare - Baby Kye died: 5 weeks - The Sunday Mirror, UK

►February 29, 2004 - Study: Vaccine benefit fades - Less effective after a year - The Cincinatti Enquirer - "A new study might spark debate among pediatricians and parents about the effectiveness of the chickenpox vaccine and when it should be given to children...Researchers at Yale Medical School say the effectiveness of the vaccine fades significantly in the first year after vaccination. And the vaccine also doesn't appear to be as effective in children younger than 15 months."

Comment:  Prior to the vaccine being developed, chickenpox was universally considered a benign disease.  If it has become more serious since that time, why might that be?

►February 29, 2004 - Experts say Flu to Cost Asia $500 Million (requires registration) - The Los Angeles Times

►February 29, 2004 - Daughter's disability fuels mother's desire to bring program to Siouxland - Sioux City Journal

►February 29, 2004 - Trapped In A World Of Hurt - 50 Million Americans Have Chronic Pain, And So Far Doctors Can't Offer Much Relief (requires registration) - The Hartford Courant via www.ctnow.com

►March 8, 2002 - Serial letter writer, Dr. Elphinstone exposed - Private Eye via www.whale.to

►February 28, 2004 - Anthrax: Vital fact the diggers weren't told - The Australian 

►March 2004 - My life with Asperger’s syndrome - journal article (Archives of Disease in Childhood)