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

►March 6, 2004 - The Geek Theory of Autism - At university, William K. met for the first time people with exceptional skills like his own - National Post via www.canada.com

►March 7, 2004 - Report on Bt corn toxin confirmed - Norwegian bares results of lab test on blood samples - A Norwegian scientist claimed as “conclusive” the traces of Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt) toxin found in the blood samples of several residents living near a Bt corn field in a remote village of South Cotabato. - PNA via The Manilla Bulletin Online

►March 6, 2004 - Key ally of MMR doctor rejects autism link (requires subscription) - Times Online, UK

►March 6, 2004 - When autism causes aggressive behavior - www.king5.com

►March 6, 2004 - Lyme Disease Support Group Formed - Voices via www.zwire.com

►March 6, 2004 - Flu alarm rang falsely, state says - Portland Press Herald - "As Maine's flu season winds down, it appears that predictions of an abnormally severe outbreak were overblown. The flu season in Maine was "not particularly noteworthy," state epidemiologist Kathleen Gensheimer said, despite reports from Western states that this year's flu strain was breaking out early and hitting hard...'There's a fine line between providing information and scaring people,' Gensheimer said. 'This story was sensationalized all the way up the channels.'"

►March 7, 2004 - Sick children untreated due to MMR fears - Families seek care in US as UK doctors dismiss complaints to avoid triple jab controversy - Sunday Herald, UK - "AUTISTIC children in Britain are being forced to fly to the US for treatment because of the ongoing political controversy surrounding the MMR jab...Up to 10 British children, including a seven-year-old from Edinburgh, have been treated at a specialist centre in Florida for painful bowel diseases after the NHS refused to recognise their symptoms...An investigation by the Sunday Herald has revealed that despite medical evidence of a link between the disorder and autism, NHS doctors are ignoring or dismissing the connection because they fear becoming embroiled in the triple jab controversy. Instead of acknowledging a previously unknown condition that inflames the children’s bowels, they say the painful symptoms are caused by constipation."

►March 7, 2004 - Autism debate underscores research difficulty, cost of disproving bad science - CP via www.canada.com - "When Dr. Noni MacDonald starts talking about the debate over whether childhood vaccinations cause autism, her words are steeped in anger. She thinks the public ought to be angry, too...The source of the emotion? The years of time, effort and research funding that has been spent disproving a piece of British research that last week was repudiated by most of the team responsible for it."

Comment:  Do any of those who are using this opportunity to discredit the research linking the MMR to autism care that the research has not actually been disproved?  Do they care that all that has happened is that a potential conflict has been raised?  Do they care that, although regrettable, a potential for conflict of interest does not in and of itself disprove research, but merely raises the specter that the research has been tainted and/or influenced by the conflict?  Have any of these self-righteously angry decriers ever once complained about the clear and obvious conflicts of interest in support of the MMR vaccine?

►March 7, 2004 - Dangerous disease - opinion - Scotland on Sunday - "Up to now, parents who fundamentally oppose the MMR have either had to source and pay for single injections - at up to £350 per course - or gamble that if they leave their children unprotected they will not catch one of the diseases. The former option is becoming increasingly rare, with sources of single inoculations drying up - at the moment the mumps vaccine is almost impossible to obtain. A mass order for single vaccines from the NHS would soon have manufacturers vying to meet the demand, of course, and it looks increasingly sensible to offer parents that alternative, so long as they are willing to pay for a service which is above and beyond basic need. Some will see this as caving in to ill-informed prejudice but this would be a small price to pay to protect all our children from disease."

►March 5, 2004 - House committee votes to kill immunization bill - AP via Charleston Daily Mail - "A bill that would have allowed parents to refuse to have their children immunized for religious reasons was killed by a House subcommittee...A House Health and Human Resources subcommittee voted 6-1 to postpone indefinitely consideration of the proposal, preventing further legislative action on it this year."

►March 5, 2004 - Bill seeks to broaden druggists' powers - Measure would let them administer flu vaccine - The Baltimore Sun

►March 5, 2004 - Attorney disbarred - The Journal News - "Filenbaum also represented clients in a private practice, taking on several cases defending parents' rights not to have their children vaccinated. He was considered an expert on immunization law, lecturing on the laws and testifying in other courts on the issue...F. Hollis Griffin, a longtime public defender who has worked with Filenbaum since 1986, said many of the cases involving vaccinations were handled by Filenbaum. Griffin said he lost one Justice Court case as a prosecutor and it was to Filenbaum."

►March 5, 2004 - Rumours and vaccines - The Globe And Mail - "So much is riding on northern Nigeria's verdict on the polio vaccine that any delay is frustrating. It had been expected that the government and Islamic religious leaders in Nigeria's Kano state would announce this week whether vaccinations against polio would resume. On Wednesday, officials with the United Nations World Health Organization said the state had postponed any decision until March 15."

►March 3, 2004 - Emerging Illnesses "The New Normal" - The Cox News Service via www.intelihealth.com - "The numerous outbreaks of previously unrecognized diseases that occurred during the past two years were no anomaly, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Sunday evening: They are a 'new normal' for which governments are not yet prepared."

Comment:  What, if any, role my vaccination play in the emergence of new diseases?  For more on this, go to Scandals: Changing Disease Epidemiology Via Vaccines - Are We "Robbing Peter To Pay Paul"?

►March 5, 2004 - Promise, peril and progress - The Washington Times - "Ever since they were discovered by scientists, embryonic stem cells have been thought to hold both distinct moral peril and great medical promise — that they might one day be used to cure diseases like Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes — but at the cost of devaluing the sacred gift of life. Those dilemmas framed President Bush's August 2001 decision to restrict federal funding of such research to a limited number of stem-cell lines. However, the policy needs re-evaluation in the light of recent circumstances."

►March 4, 2004 - Cigarette Smoking Increases Lupus Risk - Risk of Autoimmune Disease Higher Among Smokers - WebMD Medical News

►March 4, 2004 - Scripps scientists describe dangerous cocktail of alcohol, brain peptides, and neurotransmitters - Scripps Research Institute via www.eurekalert.org

►March 5, 2004 - Louisiana: Fourteen Elementary Students Test Positive for TB - AP via www.aegis.org

►March 5, 2004 - Safeguarding science - A new government panel will attempt to prevent research data from falling into the hands of terrorists - Newsday

►March 5, 2004 - Parents furious as strike chiefs snub talks plea - The Scotsman

►March 6, 2004 - Move to Florida Began Tailspin for Mother and Daughter - The Ledger - "It was the frigid weather and high rent in New Jersey that got Valerie Lowe thinking about a move to Florida...As a single mother caring for a daughter with profound cerebral palsy, Lowe, 41, said she couldn't afford $850 a month for a two-bedroom apartment in a decent part of town...Not while working as a sales associate for Old Navy...Lowe loved her job, so after asking her employer to be transferred to a sunny, Florida location, she wound up at Lakeland Square mall...That was August 2002, and the beginning of Lowe's tailspin into joblessness and welfare."

►March 7, 2004 - Single MMR jag demand soars despite claims - The Scotsman - "Accusations that research linking the triple jag to health risks was 'fatally flawed' has only served to further entrench public scepticism over the jag’s safety, according to doctors providing single-vaccine alternatives."

►March 3, 2004 - Analysis: More vaccine makers needed - UPI via http://interestalert.com - "Health officials say the recommendation that doctors withhold doses of a childhood vaccine because of shortages underscores the need for more pharmaceutical companies to enter the vaccine-making field...In a hastily assembled news briefing during the 4th International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised U.S. doctors to hold off administering the third and fourth doses of the popular and effective vaccine that had slashed incidences of pneumococcal disease in children."

►March 3, 2004 - Elk River Clinic Announces Chickenpox Vaccine Recall - PRNewswire via http://interestalert.com - "The RiverWay Clinic in Elk River today announced that it is contacting approximately 1,200 patients who received immunizations with varicella (chickenpox) vaccine at the clinic between Dec. 1998 and Dec. 2003 to ensure that they are adequately protected from the chickenpox...An audit of vaccine freezers at the clinic in January found a temperature variance in one freezer containing varicella (chickenpox) vaccine that may have resulted in the loss of effectiveness of the vaccine stored inside."

►February 2004 - Drug-Endangered Children - FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin via www.mhnet.org

►March 4, 2004 - HHS Will Lead Government-Wide effort to Enhance Biosecurity In "Dual Use" Research - New Advisory Board Established To Provide Guidance - HHS News U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

►March 3, 2004 - Old Diseases Fall Off Public Health Radar; Complacency Allows Malaria, TB To Flourish - USA Today via www.intelihealth.com - "Microbial killers such as drug-resistant malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and syphilis continue to ravage the world. Health experts say they know how to prevent and treat these diseases, but first they need to overcome a different kind of public health enemy: complacency...Public attention in the past two years has focused on new diseases, such as SARS, and new threats, such as bioterrorism, but scientists here at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases say the lack of attention to older diseases is allowing them to flourish."

►March/April 2004 - The Next Worst Thing - Is the federal government's expansion of biodefense research paving the way for the bioweapons of the future? - www.motherjones.com - "It has been called a modern-day Manhattan Project—a spending spree so vast and rapid that it might change the face of biological science. In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government is funding a massive new biodefense research effort, redirecting up to $10 billion toward projects related to biological weapons such as anthrax. The Pentagon's budget for chemical and biological defense has doubled; high-security nuclear-weapons labs have begun conducting genetic research on dangerous pathogens; universities are receiving government funding to build high-tech labs equipped to handle deadly infectious organisms; and Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the home of America's secret bioweapons program, is about to break ground on two new high-tech biodefense centers."

►March 2, 2004 - Vaccinating children protects adults as well - American Society for Microbiology via www.eurekalert.org - "Since the approval of a vaccine against pneumococcal bacteria for young children in 2000, there has not only been a drop in the incidence of severe disease caused these bacteria in children but also a significant decline in the disease in adults. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report their results today in two studies at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases...'We were pretty confident when we recommended this vaccine for children it would help them,' says Cynthia Whitney, a researcher on both studies. 'What was a pretty pleasant surprise was the amount of benefit we've seen in unvaccinated populations.'"

►March 2, 2004 - Study suggests better use of web could improve infectious disease reporting - Penn State via www.eurekalert.org

►March 5, 2004 - Men, Empathy, and Autism - A British researcher offers a new theory about the developmental disorder that has skyrocketed among children - http://chronicle.com

Comment:  For some insight into the furor that this theory has caused, go to Scandals: Adding Insult to Injustice to Injury Redux.

►March 4, 2004 - Changing rules for the disabled - It is an uphill battle but parents and caregivers are supporting the Bar Council’s ongoing signature campaign to end discrimination against the learning disabled in the education system, writes Pang Hin Yue. - http://thestar.com.my 

►March 3, 2004 - Animal Diseases Threaten Humans - Atlanta Journal-Constitution via www.immunizationinfo.org (abstract)

►March 3, 2004 - U.S. Further Rations Meningitis Vaccine - Wall Street Journal via www.immunizationinfo.org (abstract)

►March 2, 2004 - Diluted Smallpox Vaccine Dose Equally Effective - Central News Agency via www.immunizationinfo.org (abstract)

►March 2, 2004 - New, Deadly Flu Pandemic 'Inevitable,' Experts Warn - USA Today via www.immunizationinfo.org (abstract)

Comment:  How do they know it is "inevitable"?  Do we really know why the 1918 flu pandemic occurred and that it is a repeatable event?  If so, how do we "know" that?

►March 2, 2004 - Non-Profit Experiment Tests Drug Industry's Assumptions - Financial Times via www.immunizationinfo.org (abstract) - "Volunteers who enrolled at St. Louis University for a clinical trial of an experimental tuberculosis (TB) vaccine are among the first in a new attempt at nonprofit drug and vaccine development in the industrialized world, with not-for-profit organizations challenging the dominance held by pharmaceutical companies over the world of medicine."

►March 1, 2004 - Parents Lobby to Ease Immunization Laws - St. Louis Post-Dispatch via  www.immunizationinfo.org (abstract)

►March 5, 2004 - In Texas, Hire a Lawyer, Forget About a Doctor? (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times - "As domestic security director for 16 north Texas counties, Greg Dawson of Fort Worth has many dealings with doctors and hospitals, preparing for a terrorism emergency he hopes will never come...So, Mr. Dawson said, he was stunned this week to find that his name had been added to a little-known Internet database for doctors attacking "litigious behavior." His offense: filing a medical malpractice lawsuit against a Fort Worth hospital and doctor over the death of his 39-year-old wife, whose brain tumor was missed, and winning an undisclosed settlement."

►March 4, 2004 - Group Seeks Ban of Anti-Cholesterol Drug - AP via Yahoo!

►March 5, 2004 - Companies Facing Ethical Issue as Drugs Are Tested Overseas (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times -

►March 4, 2004 - 4 subjects challenge Lilly over drug trial - Outside overseer says he found no indication that suicide victim was depressed - Indianapolis Star via www.indystar.com - "Four participants in an Eli Lilly and Co. drug trial in California said the clinic's staff told them that Traci Johnson, who committed suicide last month during the same study in Indianapolis, had a history of depression...But Dr. Rafat Abonour, chairman of the institutional review board that reviews all Lilly drug trials at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said his review of Johnson's records showed no such history."

►March 4, 2004 - U.S. Lawmakers Push for Drug Monitoring Systems - Reuters via Yahoo!
 
►March 1, 2004 - IRS Allows Weight-Loss Tax Deduction - AP via Yahoo!

►March 5, 2004 - Will an Apple a Day Keep the Doctor Away? - Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center via Newswise

►March 3, 2004 - Mysterious virus may thwart HIV - New England Journal of Medicine via New Scientist

►March 5, 2004 - Traces of Bt toxin found in lumads blood samples - Mindanao News via www.mindanaotimes.com.ph

►March 4, 2004 - "Triple Swap" Kidney Transplant Operation a Success - Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions via Newswise

►March 4, 2004 - Autism? Dyslexia? Try Mozart - www.wnep.com

►March 4, 2004 - BioPort Supplies FDA-Licensed Anthrax Vaccine to Taiwan - BioPort via Business Wire

►March 4, 2004 - Multiple sclerosis: Taming of a shrew - UPI

►March 3, 2004 - House debates malpractice bill (requires registration) - The Kansas City Star

►March 4, 2004 - Bills seek to allow greater access to flu shots - Legislation would expand pharmacists' powers to give vaccinations - Baltimore Sun

►February 2004 - Antibodies to infectious agents in individuals with recent onset schizophrenia - journal article (European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience)

►March 5, 2004 - Rubella Dangers - Medstar via www.wsoctv.com

Comment:  For a perspective on rubella vaccine dangers, go to Scandals: Is Rubella Vaccination Playing A Role In The Rise In Autism?

►March 5, 2004 - Monkeys May Speed Alzheimer's Vaccine - Animal Model Shows Promise to Speed Plaque-Removing Vaccine - Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders via WebMD

►March 5, 2004 - Injection of sense (requires subscription) - Times Online, UK

►March 5, 2004 - Researchers Reject Famous MMR-Autism Study - Experts Say Likely to Close the Door on MMR Vaccine Controversy - WebMD

►February 2004 - Do We Spend Too Much on Immunizations? - Health Care Policy Center, Independence Institute

►February 20, 2004 - Researchers Find a Type of Stem Cell May Have the Ability to Repair the Brain (requires subscription) - The New York Times

►Immunization Tracking - Source Code and Application - Item number: 3664884194 - Starting bid: US $5,000.00 - Ends Mar-11-04 18:40:11 PST - www.ebay.com

►Treating the Biology of Autism: an approach to interventions for spectrum disorders (pdf) - conference alert - ASA/OCC Biology of Autism Treatments - April 3 & 4, 2004  in Pontiac, Michigan 

►March 5, 2004 - MMR: the controversy continues - Even though Dr Andrew Wakefield, the leading protagonist of the MMR-autism link, has been discredited, and the Lancet paper that launched the scare in 1998 has been repudiated by 10 of its 13 co-authors, the controversy continues. This suggests that the key factor in the scare is not Dr Wakefield's flawed science, but the wider climate of fear of environmental dangers and suspicion of scientific, medical and political authority. - www.spiked-online.com

►Healthy Skepticism - Improving health by reducing harm from misleading drug promotion - www.healthyskepticism.org

►December 1997 - MaLAM, a medical lobby for appropriate marketing of pharmaceuticals - We can protect scientific medicine from misleading promotion - journal article (Medical Journal of Australia)

►March 2004 - Effectiveness of an Herbal Preparation Containing Echinacea, Propolis, and Vitamin C in Preventing Respiratory Tract Infections in Children - A Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-Controlled, Multicenter Study - journal article (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine) - "Conclusion  A preventive effect of a product containing echinacea, propolis, and vitamin C on the incidence of respiratory tract infections was observed.^"

►March 2004 - The Impact of Reminder-Recall Interventions on Low Vaccination Coverage in an Inner-City Population - journal article (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine)

►March 2004 - Childhood Immunization Rates Before and After the Implementation of Medicaid Managed Care - journal article (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine)

►March 2004 - Effects of an Advocacy Intervention to Reduce Smoking Among Teenagers - journal article (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine)

►March 3, 2004 - Ancient Virus May Help HIV Patients Live Longer - HealthDay via Yahoo!

►March 3, 2004 - School Program Curbs Teen Suicide Attempts: Study - Reuters via Yahoo!

►March 2, 2004 - Children in Shelters Hit Hard by Asthma (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times

►March 4, 2004 - Antibacterial Products Don't Reduce Infection Symptoms - Annals of Internal Medicine via Ivanhoe

►March 3, 2004 - Shortage forces cutback in infant vaccine - Health officials asked doctors to further reduce the number of vaccine doses given to protect infants against meningitis and deadly blood infections, in order to stretch out a short supply. - Reuters via CNN

►March 2004 - Short Children Born Small for Gestational Age and Treated with Growth Hormone for Three Years Have an Important Catch-Down Five Years after Discontinuation of Treatment - journal article (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism)

►March 4, 2004 - Vitamins Don't Prevent Pneumonia in Male Smokers - Reuters via Yahoo!

►March 4, 2004 - Kids Who Eat Too Much Fat, or Too Little, Prone to Weight Gain - And too many aren't eating enough dairy products, study finds - HealthDay via USA Today

►March 6, 2004 - High IQ in childhood may protect from cognitive decline - journal article (BMJ)

►March 6, 2004 - Prognosis for teenagers and young people with cancer fails to improve - journal article (BMJ)

►March 6, 2004 - Retraction of an interpretation (requires registration) - journal article (The Lancet)

►March 6, 2004 - A statement by the editors of The Lancet (requires registration) - journal article (The Lancet)
 
►March 6, 2004 - A statement by Dr Simon Murch  (requires registration)- journal article (The Lancet) 

►March 6, 2004 - A statement by Professor John Walker-Smith (requires registration) - journal article (The Lancet)  

►March 6, 2004 - A statement by Dr Andrew Wakefield (requires registration) - journal article (The Lancet)   

►March 6, 2004 - A statement by The Royal Free and University College Medical School and The Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust (requires registration) - journal article (The Lancet)  

►March 6, 2004 - Watchdog keeps drug firms true - The Australian - "PETER Mansfield is an unlikely revolutionary...Sitting in his 'office' in his southern Adelaide home, the quiet, bespectacled man seems more like a university lecturer than a man who has spent 20 years fighting an unequal battle against drug companies around the world...His chosen fight?...Targeting the elimination of inappropriate marketing of drugs by pharmaceutical companies...Dr Mansfield, a part-time GP, leads Healthy Skepticism, an organisation with core funding of $8000 a year, facing an industry whose annual Australian promotional budget is believed to be more than $1 billion."