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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
I've always felt that Andrew Wakefield was a murderer -- growing up with my mother, who is a doctor, I'm not sure any other opinion was possible. As someone who's now studying for a degree in infectious diseases, I feel it even more. So my comment on picking up Brian Deer's account of Andrew Wakefield's fraud, The Doctor Who Fooled the World, was that it was surely going to raise my blood pressure.
It did, of course. The very beginnings of Andrew Wakefield's fraud could have been, possibly even were, an honest attempt to look into a hypothesis. But then money got involved, big money, and he saw his name writ in lights -- and he wanted it so badly. He still wants it, and he'll do anything for it: that is apparent in all his actions.
It doesn't help that I don't think (from Deer's account anyway) that Wakefield really understood the science that he was having others do for him. He latched onto theories suggested for him by non-scientists, and tried to make them true by force of will, altering the evidence until it suited his purposes. It also likely wasn't helped by other people around him, convinced by his charisma, trying to get him the results he wanted.
This is why we start out with a null hypothesis. We go in assuming that we're wrong, and it requires clear evidence that meets criteria that suggest it didn't happen by chance in order to change our minds. Even then, even when we're got a likelihood of P = 0.05, that's still a chance that we got this result by chance (to be accurate, P = 0.05 means that there's a 5/100 = 1/20 chance that the observed result arose by pure chance). Deer doesn't go into the depths of whether Wakefield had a null hypothesis, or what his P-values looked like, but the rest of his descriptions inspire no confidence, along with the fact that he refused to conduct a proper, blinded trial when it was offered to him on a silver platter.
If you're a scientist, you don't say no to the chance to run a fully funded study that will prove or disprove your theory -- not unless you think there's a significant chance you're wrong, and you want to make money out of the ambiguity that you might just be right.
Deer discusses all kinds of ways in which Wakefield created and perpetuated his fraud, and also some of the human impact thereof. It's a journalist's point of view, so sometimes the scientific detail I crave isn't there, but it's explained well and clearly for a layperson. It's difficult to say I enjoyed this, but it was valuable.
I don't think it would convince anyone who isn't already willing to be convinced, unfortunately, but if someone's on the fence, it might help.
It did, of course. The very beginnings of Andrew Wakefield's fraud could have been, possibly even were, an honest attempt to look into a hypothesis. But then money got involved, big money, and he saw his name writ in lights -- and he wanted it so badly. He still wants it, and he'll do anything for it: that is apparent in all his actions.
It doesn't help that I don't think (from Deer's account anyway) that Wakefield really understood the science that he was having others do for him. He latched onto theories suggested for him by non-scientists, and tried to make them true by force of will, altering the evidence until it suited his purposes. It also likely wasn't helped by other people around him, convinced by his charisma, trying to get him the results he wanted.
This is why we start out with a null hypothesis. We go in assuming that we're wrong, and it requires clear evidence that meets criteria that suggest it didn't happen by chance in order to change our minds. Even then, even when we're got a likelihood of P = 0.05, that's still a chance that we got this result by chance (to be accurate, P = 0.05 means that there's a 5/100 = 1/20 chance that the observed result arose by pure chance). Deer doesn't go into the depths of whether Wakefield had a null hypothesis, or what his P-values looked like, but the rest of his descriptions inspire no confidence, along with the fact that he refused to conduct a proper, blinded trial when it was offered to him on a silver platter.
If you're a scientist, you don't say no to the chance to run a fully funded study that will prove or disprove your theory -- not unless you think there's a significant chance you're wrong, and you want to make money out of the ambiguity that you might just be right.
Deer discusses all kinds of ways in which Wakefield created and perpetuated his fraud, and also some of the human impact thereof. It's a journalist's point of view, so sometimes the scientific detail I crave isn't there, but it's explained well and clearly for a layperson. It's difficult to say I enjoyed this, but it was valuable.
I don't think it would convince anyone who isn't already willing to be convinced, unfortunately, but if someone's on the fence, it might help.
Deer's research is invaluable, and without him Wakefield might really have gotten away with it, but my goodness, I just cannot stand his prose style. It's like every sentence is a newspaper headline. A shame, I've seen so many documentaries by Deer and based on his work that I'd been looking forward to this but it just doesn't gel with me. YMMV, of course
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Might be a bit hard to follow if you're not familiar with events, but well worth it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Medical trauma, Pandemic/Epidemic
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
dark
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
A very important and readable book about a vital issue. My only complaints are that, since it was completed pre-COVID, the new developments are missed out (though this is clearly not the fault of the author but rather coincidental timing), and that it could have used some actual autistic voices since he only ever discusses interviews with parents and the autistic children and adults often feel sidelined (likely a side effect of how the investigations went at the time, but still a bit frustrating after a while).
Before reading this book, I thought I couldn’t be less sympathetic to the anti-vax movement. Then I read this and realized it was somehow even more of a crock of shit than I had originally thought. It certainly didn’t help that Andrew Wakefield is a reprehensible person who somehow gets worse with everything you read about him. But a gastroenterologist who has no background in vaccines or autism trying to convince people that autism is a gastrointestinal disease brought on by the MMR vaccine is as completely ridiculous as it sounds. The amount of times I had to put down this book to rant about some nonsense to my girlfriend (who has a masters in public health and got me to read this book) was insane.
I really think that everyone who is even remotely against vaccines needs to read this, because any amount of critical thinking shows how much of this data was fabricated. It also outlines the major conflict of interest coming from the lawyer representing a class action suit against vaccines who was looking for a vast payout for his clients and himself. This whole story stinks of lying and corruption, so much so that it seems like it should be fiction.
I really think that everyone who is even remotely against vaccines needs to read this, because any amount of critical thinking shows how much of this data was fabricated. It also outlines the major conflict of interest coming from the lawyer representing a class action suit against vaccines who was looking for a vast payout for his clients and himself. This whole story stinks of lying and corruption, so much so that it seems like it should be fiction.
informative
I'm not a huge fan of his writing style, but an incredible book none the less. I thought I knew pretty much everything about Wakefield, but this plumbed new depths.
informative
slow-paced
Incredibly well researched and put together.