Peter Parry

On Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:03:58 -0000, "john" <nospam@bt.com> wrote:

>http://whale.to/vaccine/lancet7.html
>
>On the matter of the Lancet retraction
>Hilary Butler

Not the brightest bunny in the hutch is she?

> In
>2004, the Lancet "partially" retracted the paper,

No it didn't, 10 of the 13 authors issued a retraction of an
interpretation after Wakefield widely misused it (the interpretation
that the vaccine could be linked to health problems). This retraction
was signed by ten of the 13 original authors of the study, including
Professors Walker-Smith and Murch - Wakefields co -defendants in the
GMC case.

>on the basis that Andrew
>Wakefield never declared to the Lancet, financial conflicts of interest.

Completely false.  The retraction was not made or instituted by the
Lancet but by a majority of the studies authors.

>Interesting then, to see that one reason for the full retraction is because
>the study didn't have ethical approval. How strange. That document was
>tabled to the GMC and was also provided to the media outside the GMC by Dr
>Andrew Wakefield a few days ago.

Unfortunately the piece of paper Wakefild waved about referred to
another and unrelated application for ethical approval for another
study.

>Did the GMC lose that piece of paper,

No, it read it, perhaps Butler should have done likewise.

>Richard Horton's other excuse for retracting the paper, is because the study
>purported that the children were 'consecutively referred' and the Lancet now
>believes that's false.

No "believes" about it, it clearly was false as Wakefield admitted at
the GMC hearing.

> Okay, so what about this science that Richard Horton lauded so highly in front of the GMC?

He wasn't aware that so much of it wasn't quite as he had been told
and based up deceit?

>It's ironic in the bigger picture of things, that Richard Horton should
>retract the paper.

No, it is completely inevitable.  It has been exposed as manipulated.

>Second, the Lancet is a peer review journal, and requires several
>"independent" reviewers to sign off studies.  Obviously there wasn't
>anything wrong with the science or you'd think it would not have got past
>get-go. 

There were a number of questions raised by the reviewers, but all
assumed the authors were, if nothing else,  telling the truth.  They
were not (or at least one was not).  Had Wakefield revealed the
children were hand picked and not a case series the paper would
_never_  have been accepted for publication in the first place.