A doctor, Andrew Wakefield commits fraud in studies blaming autism on vaccines, and a mayor commits suicide while under investigation for fraud.
Under watch:
In an early 2009 piece on white collar crime, The Economist magazine suggests there may be some truth in something those who have read my books would predict: “Many [Club Fed and other white collar] prisoners suddenly discover, post-conviction, that they had a drinking problem….” I would add that those who don’t figure this out might benefit from greater introspection. In the spirit of The Economist’s discovery, a couple of recent stories follow for which the evidence of alcoholism is in the behavior itself.
British doctor Andrew Wakefield, whose 1998 study linking the widely used measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism was found by the British medical journal The Lancet to have been an “elaborate fraud.” The purported study had an enormous effect, inspiring a panic to get the mercury compound called thimerosal out of vaccines. Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins killed a vaccine liability provision that would have prevented parents from bringing thimerosal suits, Britain’s immunization rates dropped to 80% and 40% of American parents delayed or declined at least one of their children’s shots. Former Playboy playmate Jenny McCarthy (see http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.com/Jenny_McCarthy_Body_Count/Home.html) promoted anti-vaccination rhetoric on Oprah and many other venues (never thinking perhaps keeping kids from getting sunlight might be in fact one of the main causes of autism—see http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/ for some of the evidence).
Wakefield used no controls, never disclosed that he was approached two years before his study was published by a lawyer who represented several families with autistic children, and that this lawyer specifically hired Wakefield to find justification for a class action suit against MMR manufacturers. Wakefield didn’t disclose that a company owned by his wife was paid nearly half a million pounds plus expenses for the work he did for the lawyer. Originally, he denied being paid at all and then he lied about how much he was paid. Before the study was published, Wakefield filed patents for his own measles vaccine and several autism-related products. His study was not approved by his hospital’s ethics committee; when confronted, he first claimed it was approved and later claimed he didn’t need approval (he did). He purchased blood samples for his research from children as young as 4 and callously joked in public about them crying, fainting and vomiting. Several of the eventual 12 subjects, 11 of whom became litigants, were later found to have had autistic symptoms before they got the MMR vaccine. There’s more, but you get the idea: based on behaviors we’re at 80% likelihood of addiction. (This story from a slightly different point of view is in the June 2010 issue of TAR at http://www.preventragedy.com/pages/TAR/055.jun10.html, under “Codependent of the month.”)
Springfield, Illinois Mayor Timothy J. Davlin, dead of an apparent suicide by gunshot at 53. Davlin was scheduled to appear in court over his role as executor to give a financial accounting of a cousin’s estate after Catholic Charities of Springfield claimed it didn’t receive money due to it as a beneficiary. He was under investigation by the IRS for unpaid taxes totaling nearly $90,000. Let’s see…politician, check. Unpaid taxes despite an apparent decent income—check. Divorced, but only once, check. Suicide—check. A confluence of behavioral indicators can indicate up to an 80% or so likelihood of addiction. Silence on the part of everyone who could confirm or disprove addictive use of one or more drugs and, hence, alcoholism—check.