Kozlowski: Following emotions can be dangerous

Medical findings can affect millions of people overnight and provide real results that can… Medical findings can affect millions of people overnight and provide real results that can push back some of the worst diseases — such as acute death syndrome — and make our longer lives more livable. But what happens when a study neatly divides people into two camps, with each side accusing the other of endangering children?

According to Time Magazine, a General Medical Council, a UK government panel that registers doctors and protects patients, has found that Dr. Andrew J. Wakefield, lead author of a controversial study published in The Lancet in 1998, violated numerous ethical procedures in conducting his research, and ruled that he acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly”. The study in question supposedly showed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Wakefield became famous for urging parents not to give their children the MMR vaccine, and lots of parents have taken him up on that suggestion.

The controversial 1998 study itself has been “un-published” as it were: The Lancet, the medical journal that originally carried the article, announced last Tuesday that they were withdrawing the article. The Lancet is evaluating its review process, and trying to avoid other publishing firestorms in the future.

Now, the original study itself leaves room for doubts much more considerable than those entertained by the anti-MMR crowd. The study under fire involved 12 children, 11 of whom were male. I hope I’m not the only one who wonders if a study of 12 children might be a little too small-scale to allow definitive conclusions, particularly in regards to something as dangerous as urging parents not to get their children vaccinated. The paper itself seems a bit weak, and the link between autism and the vaccine appears to be based largely on circumstantial evidence.

Other studies have shown no link between autism and the vaccine. Despite all this, the hue and cry against MMR has continued, and will only get more intense as those who support Wakefield suggest that what is happening to him now is essentially part of a huge medical cover-up.

This whole situation causes problems. Whether or not the charges of the Council are valid, trust in peer-reviewed journals is now less than absolute. With this comes the possible danger that somebody who says something unpopular or aberrant will be regarded as less credible, regardless of what the data suggests. Occasionally, the people who are right get laughed at — much like the way that those who suggested that a bacterium caused stomach ulcers were ridiculed before they won the Nobel Prize for their work.

There is also the problem of tighter regulation of peer-review. If The Lancet and other major scientific publications turn away controversial publications, there is a possibility that voices might not be heard, causing us to lose out on important developments.

Dr. Wakefield himself, considering recent events, is probably not one of the important voices we should be listening to. His aggressive refusal of vaccinations has placed the public of Great Britain and, to lesser extent, the United States, in danger. Even if the study was impeccably conducted, it was wrong to take something based on 12 kids and scare the hell out of everyone in the developed world.

This case also shows that many people still do not have a good idea of how scientific research is conducted. Studies have to be repeated by many different people, always producing roughly similar results for those results to be considered a reasonable approximation of how the world works. Those convinced of the link between MMR and autism disregard the very real debate in the medical literature that suggests that, at best, it is far from clear that the two are linked, and at worst, that they are not linked at all.

Through those who try to draw a connection between the vaccine and the disease, we see the worst tendency exhibited in humans: the rush to blame others. The cause of autism remains elusive, and its rise in recent years has been a troubling development. Despite the fact that nobody — not even the drug companies making the MMR vaccine — knows what really causes autism, some parents of autistic children lashed out, assuming the drug companies were evilly sickening children in order to make a profit. The comfort brought to people by the discovery of whose head they should be seeking is perhaps the most insidious comfort of all.

Where this will all end up is anybody’s guess. If more studies come out showing no connection between vaccination and autism, perhaps it will all dry up and blow away. No matter what happens, we must all learn the dangers of acting passionately before thinking, and of following prophets who wind up being discredited.

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